.lessons from weeds.

our culture tends to categorize things: beautiful, ugly; worthy, worthless; significant, insignificant. i had a profound moment today... with the weeds in my backyard. no, i'm not kidding. we've had quite a bit of rain this spring and now that the sun's finally found its way to santa barbara again, my backyard is growing. growing with things that are "unwelcome" by anyone's standards. things that you look at and go, "man, i wish i had the time to get rid of that stuff because weeds are just useless and annoying." you've all been there... don't lie.

i walked outside and saw the weeds this morning. i walked past them once and made the above comment in my head. i walked past them a second time and stopped. i saw them differently. i saw significance and i saw beauty and i thought, "how awesome is our God that He even chose to make weeds beautiful. He could have made them brown and twig-like and spiky, but he didn't (unless your talking about the Texas type - tumble weeds, but disregard those for the value of this post, thanks). i thought about this as i went about my day today & was grateful for a Creator who loves his creation enough to make beauty out of something we so often deem useless. and then i was done with it. i was going to keep this picture in my mind and move on.
and then i was on the phone telling the story a little later and one of my favorite people said back to me - "i don't think God sees weeds as useless or insignificant. they are beautiful to Him." wow. so true. if all of creation was made to glorify him, then that includes weeds. he made those "annoying" little pests to glorify himself and you know what? they are beautiful. and because he made people and we're his favorite, we are to enjoy the creation he deems beautiful. so what did i do next? this...
i took that creation that we often label as ugly, annoying and insignificant and i brought it into my world and it brightened up my home. i am grateful to love and serve a God that values weeds and that values me when i see myself as a weed or even when i'm acting like a weed. i'm glad He knows how to make beauty out of ashes and continues to do that in my life, making me significant, worthy and beautiful only because of how good He is.