Weeds…
Your mind is a garden. Your thoughts are the seeds. The harvest can either be flowers or weeds.
William Wadsworth
For God did not give us a spirit of fear. He gave us a spirit of power and of love and of a good mind.
2 Timothy 1:7 NLV
It’s that time of year when the plants that you don’t want in your yard seem to spread and grow much faster than the plants that you are purposefully growing in the places that you want them to grow. One of the things that I’ve learned over the many years that I’ve gardened is that it’s important to stay on top of weeding in the spring. Those dandelions popping up in my lawn will take over the grass if I don’t stop keep them from growing, blossoming, and going to seed. Since I’m not a fan of poison on my lawn where my animals run and play and I walk barefoot in the summer, I tediously dig them out. One by one. Or should I say tens by tens…or more, each spring day.
Negative thoughts can be a lot like dandelions. One moment, we are fairly content in life as we count our blessings and work through our struggles. Then we start to think negative thoughts and begin voicing numerous complaints about our responsibilities, our relationships, and other aspects of our lives. The next thing you know, we begin to feel grumpy because we are focusing on the negative. If not nipped in the bud, we can settle into a depression. We can also lose relationships because we choose to see negatives in people rather than valuing those around us. We can choose to let our lives become overgrown with negativity, or we can weed out those thoughts, so that positive healthy thoughts can nurture our minds and hearts as well as those around us. We can choose to count blessings to help keep our focus on the positive.
We all have thought weeds in our lives. This spring, as you weed your yard or see weeds elsewhere, think about what weeds you need to eradicate in your thought life. Pull up those weeds…and replace them with purposefully cultivated positive thoughts! Tend the garden of your heart and soul!