It’s been a while since I wrote a post as life has been busy. I mean, it’s always busy, but it’s been a whole other level. Work has been busy and has involved quite a lot of writing which means I’ve found it hard to get the head space to write in my free time which has made me sad as I love expressing myself this way.
A few weeks ago, I found myself feeling really low, a little lost and couldn’t find the words to express how I felt to my husband when he asked. Work felt overwhelming, life felt a bit ‘bleurgh’ and my body was tired.
We’d been away from home for a little while and when we got back I was pottering about in the garden, clearing a flower bed ready for a sunflower and two new plants.*
Now, I don’t know if you know much about gardening (I certainly don’t!) but we have an excess of bindweed in our garden. Bindweed is a creeping plant that grows excessively and ‘binds’ other plants by wrapping around them. I cleared masses of it when we first did the garden but it creeps back in every day. It actually looks quite pretty when it flowers which is deceiving.
I pulled lots of the bindweed out of the soil but felt it snapping so I was having to dig right down to the roots to get it out. I filled a huge garden sack with weeds but I definitely wasn’t finished. Unfortunately, most of the roots are in neighbour’s gardens under our fence so it will be an ongoing job.
As I was gardening I found myself comparing the feelings I had to the way bindweed grows. I realised I felt as if all the things putting pressure on me were binding me. I couldn’t explain how I was feeling but I knew it all felt like too much was on me. I also realised that even though I couldn’t figure out my feelings I had to choose to weed. I had to choose to make choices about how to unbind myself.
For me, in order to unbind myself, I need to talk, I need to pray and I need to do something about it. So, inspired by the bindweed, that’s what I found myself doing and I am feeling considerably untangled and unbound even though many of those things still remain nearby. Unbinding ourselves from the weeds that surround us is an ongoing task and I know for me that it’s so important to keep reminding myself to weed, look after myself and refocus on God.
If you think about the bindweed analogy, what in your life is binding? And, how are you going to weed?
* Since I started writing this post the sunflower and one of my plants have both died. Clearly not quite there with my gardening yet.
However, feel free to look and be amazed by what we HAVE achieved…
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