From the time we are little, we are taught to wash our hands (most of us, anyway). There is this constant message about keeping our hands clean. So, from a young age, we are conditioned to wash our hands. To get all the dirt and grime off, so that we can move freely through life without that mess holding us back.
But, what if I told you that sometimes you have to get your hands dirty?
I feel like I am on the tail end of months of depression. I have known I was struggling, but I have kept my eyes fixed on the horizon, knowing that rescue was on the way. It would have been easy to slip under the weight of the heaviness I have been carrying around, but because God is good and has helped me to grow in this area, I didn't give in to the despair. I felt the despair and the heaviness, but I bore up under it-I didn't let it drown me. Because I KNEW that it would not last. I knew that God would bring relief and comfort in the weak moments and lift me up out of it, once I had faced what had led me there to begin with.
In the midst of my depression, I have been incapable of keeping up with the beautiful garden and flower beds that the prior owners so lovingly cared for. At first, the weeds were small and sporadic. But with more rain than feels usual for the Midwest in summer and complete inattention, the weeds very quickly multiplied. They grew taller and thicker until there were some places where you couldn't really even see the plants anymore. And they just kept growing. As they grew, I became more and more depressed. It was a metaphor, really, for what my summer has been like. It got to the point where I really didn't even want to go out onto my top deck, because just looking at it made life feel 10 times harder.
The state of the weeds has been hanging over my head, threatening to overwhelm my garden and my mind. I have, over the last several weeks especially, felt a lot of shame in not being able to get out there and deal with it. I have felt frozen in place, unable to take the step I need to just start clearing them. It is too much. It will take too long. It will be too hard. It will be putting my body through something that will take me DAYS to physically recover from. It was just too big. Because of my neglect, and partly because of much unexpected rain this summer, the weeds began to take over the garden. You could still see the flowers and they were actually still growing and some even thriving in their harsh environment. But you could tell that they were being choked out.
It has been a source of great stress to me this summer, knowing it needed to get done, but feeling completely defeated just from looking at it. It's not that I don't know how to weed, or that I physically can't do it. I CAN do it. It is incredibly hard on my back and neck, and it will take days to get the pain levels down, but I am capable of doing the work. But there is something about starting. Taking that first step.
I freeze.
Every.
Single.
Time.
I will stand there and look out, and all I see is a mountain. And I have climbed a mountain. It's a BIG commitment. Once you start, there's oftentimes no turning back. So, just like you have to gear up for a hike up a large mountain, I always feel like I have to gear myself up to tackle these types of projects, especially when I have let them get out of control. I feel a desperate need to be prepared and know the outcome before I take that first step. But that's not the reality we live in. Most of the time, we do not get to know the outcome. That's the whole mystery of life--we have no idea how it is going to turn out. And for those of us who like things neat and tidy and to always be prepared for any eventuality, it can lead to a lot of uncertainty, which in turn can lead to high levels of anxiety as we pass through this life.
But sometimes you have to just start, even when you can't see a way through. Even when you don't really know how to take the first step. Oftentimes we think the first step is the actual movement towards whatever the "thing" we need to do is. But really, the first step is making the decision to do it. I haven't wanted to commit to the weeding because I have known the sheer amount of hours and physical beating it would take to get it all done. I'm not the kind of person who can start a project and just put in 50% effort. If I am going to do something, I am going to wholeheartedly do it. I don't know any other way to live, and I know after a year of therapy that a big part of that is a fear that I will not be enough if I don't give it 110% percent. It's simply where I am right now, but it is not a place I am planning to camp out in for any amount of time. A time will come when I learn to balance wanting to give 100% in any situation or relationship not out of fear but because that is what God asks of me.
In the Passion translation, Colossians 3:23 says, "Put your heart and soul into every activity you do, as though you are doing it for the Lord himself and not merely for others." For much of my life, I did tend to put my heart and soul into my activities, but it has only been in the last year that I have been learning that my motivation was for myself or others. I wasn't giving my all because I was motivated to please God. It was done out of desperation, to prove that I am worthy of love or acceptance or praise. It was a survival technique I picked up early on in my life. And it has served me well, honestly, this ability to jump in and tackle a big project. That perfectionism has made me good at my job, and good at craft projects, taking a lot of pride in a job well done.
Knowing how I tend to throw myself into projects--meaning once I start I will not stop until it's done well--regardless of the motivation, I knew how hard weeding the garden was going to be, and so I kept putting it off, and it just kept becoming more and more unmanageable. If I was going to take back control over the weeds, it meant one thing: I was going to have to get my hands dirty. I was going to have to get down on the ground and begin pulling up everything that didn't belong. And I also knew it was going to take a significant amount of my time.
So two nights ago, I began. I made the decision to just start somewhere. I picked out a small section of the flower bed and got to work. With the break in heat, the temps even cooperated to where I wasn't unreasonably angry by how hot I was while doing a chore I didn't want to do in the first place. I only did a small section of the beds that day. Yesterday, I took advantage of another burst of energy and drive and did almost ALL the rest of the beds on the deck, leaving one large section. Then last night, with the help of two great friends, we finished the back and made significant progress in the front.
Not able to leave a big project unfinished, especially when so close to the finish line, I turned on some worship music and got down in the dirt again this morning. Being too lazy to go get gloves from the back though, I decided I would just do without. I never used gloves to weed growing up so it certainly wasn't going to hurt me, right?
And the first thing I noticed is how quickly my hands got dirty. Sometimes, simply put, you have to be willing to get your hands dirty. Life is messy. There's no clean, painless way through it. You have to be willing to get a little (or at times, a lot) messy. And with weeding, you can't just bend over and pull the weeds up. If there are only a handful, maybe you can sustain that. But if there's a lot of work to do, the best way is to sit down right in the middle of it and just start clearing the path. So, that's what I did. I got down on the ground, in the middle of the weeds, and just started pulling.
It's kind of crazy to me how many different types of weeds I have encountered over the last 3 days. Some weeds come up easily. We have a lot of wild violets or clover or something in the front and you can just gather up the stems and pull them up by the root without too much effort. There were some tall thick-stalked weeds that looked like they would be really difficult that proved to be easy. And then, there were some really thin, long weeds that simply would not pull up at the root. They would break off in my hand and it would be difficult to get them out by the root.
I see my therapy journey through this metaphor with the garden and the weeds. I have spent the last year weeding through all the things in my life that are unhealthy or could use pruning. Some of the things have been easier than others to move through and uproot from my life. And then there are these lingering things: fear of abandonment, speaking to and thinking cruelly about myself, a desperate desire to be SEEN by others that has a lot of pride tied up with it. Those are the deeply rooted things that I can't do on my own. I have tried. I have pulled and dug at them, never finding their roots. And if you don't pull something up by the roots, it WILL reappear. It might take some time, or it might come back overnight. But it will come back up and you will have to deal with it again. You have to find the root and then completely remove it.
As God always does, he has been bringing me songs and images and lessons, and right now, as I dive deep into healing, he has sent them cascading over one another. While weeding last night, Sara, Bre and I talked briefly about the metaphors for life and weeding and gardens. We didn't delve too deeply into it, but we all agreed there was a lot of dots to connect there. Sara wrote briefly about it on Facebook last night, and included this picture with a line I have always loved from Who Am I (NEEDTOBREATHE). "You grow your roses on my barren soul."
Come out of hiding, you're safe here with me
There's no need to cover what I already see
You've got your reasons, but I hold your peace
You've been on lockdown and I hold the key
'Cause I loved you before you knew it was love
And I saw it all, still, I chose the cross
And you were the one that I was thinking of
When I rose from the grave
Now rid of the shackles, my victory's yours
I tore the veil for you to come close
There's no reason to stand at a distance anymore
You're not far from home
I'll be your lighthouse when you're lost at sea
And I will illuminate everything
No need to be frightened by intimacy
No, just throw off your fear
And come running to me, woo-ooah
'Cause I loved you before you knew it was love
And I saw it all, still, I chose the cross
And you were the one that I was thinking of
When I rose from the grave
Now rid of the shackles, my victory's yours
I tore the veil for you to come close
There's no reason to stand at a distance anymore
You're not far from home
You're not far from home
Keep on coming, aye
And oh, as you run
What hindered love
Will only become
Part of the story
And oh, as you run
What hindered love
Will only become
Part of the story
And oh, as you run
What hindered love
Will only become
Part of the story
And oh, as you run
What hindered love
Will only become
Part of the story
Baby, you're almost home now
Please, don't quit now
You're almost all to me, yeah
Baby, you're almost home now
Please, don't quit now
You're almost all to me, yeah
Yes, you are
Now, baby, you're almost home now
Please, don't quit now
You're almost all to me, yeah
