Heart Gardens

We cut down a couple of trees a few months ago leaving circles of just plain, unplanted, brown dirt.

While we have taken our time deciding what we wanted to plant in the vacant soil, huge weeds have moved in. Not just a couple of big weeds either, but several, and all different types. A potpourri of weeds you could say.

We uprooted living things and never replaced them. The void left fertile spaces - for opportunistic weeds.

We know a sweet mid-teenage girl who is from a broken home, left to fend for herself for large chunks of each day. Lately, preoccupied with their own separate romantic pursuits, the adults in her life have been neglecting her, creating a gigantic void within her tender heart.

She has changed. Too quickly. The parental wisdom which has always guided her, the nurturing, the watchful attention, have been removed, leaving a certain emptiness. Just as fertile soils don't remain barren, but avail themselves to whatever comes along, wanted or unwanted, so our friend's careful upbringing has been replaced with, well, weeds. Drinking, parties, sexy stuff, vanity, mindlessness, illusions, dreamlessness, and lemming-like crowd-pleasing. She's headed straight for a cliff.

A good object lesson, sure, but a life off-track nevertheless.

It's hard to watch.

I'm going to dig up our weeds and plant something pretty in the dirt. Hopefully someone will garden the thirsty heart of our young friend, as well. Maybe we'll be privileged to help.

God knows all of our hearts can benefit from a little creative gardening now and then.