Who's/whose weeds?

    It's dandelion time, have you noticed?  Hardly does the grass have time to get green when sure enough, little yellow heads scatter themselves throughout the yard.  Most people consider them the scourge of spring - some people even see them as an insult and take it quite personally.  How dare they.  But one person's weed is another person's bouquet; my mother taught me that.

   One spring day, my two year-old son came running from the neighbor's yard with a couple of tulips clutched in his hand.  He was so proud and brought them to me with a big smile on his face - "for you, Mommy!".   They were brought with so much love but I accepted them with dread. They were plucked from the neighbor's bed of prize flowers so I began explaining to my son that he must never do that again - it was so wrong.  By the time I got half way through telling him, there were big tears rolling down his cheeks.  He had been so excited - he just wanted to do something nice for his mom.  

     That's when my mom stepped in.  She took him and asked if he had seen any of the pretty yellow flowers in the grass.  Yes, he had - we were living in student housing and dandelions were plentiful.  She told him all about how God makes dandelions to grow everywhere just so little children have flowers they can pick whenever they want and they will never get in trouble. These beautiful little mums are made just for children and that's why they grow down low where they are easy to pick.   God makes them grow all spring and summer so that you will never run out of flowers to enjoy.  And when the flowers go to seed, you get to blow them apart to make wishes come true.

   Over the years, I don't know how many bouquets of bright sunny yellow flowers I have gotten from my children.  For years, I had an antique glass that sat in the kitchen window waiting for  each new bunch of flowers.  Somewhere along the way, the children grew older and dandelions became just weeds messing up the grass.

   I caught myself looking at dandelions shining in the sun this weekend.  How I would give anything to get a grubby little handful of dandelions for my windowsill!  I pray I am blessed with grandchildren that I can teach all about children's flowers.

    In these days of worries about job losses, credit woes, and the on-going wars, perhaps we would all be helped by rethinking our position on dandelions.  I think sometimes we worry ourselves into making big problems out of little weeds.  We take it as a personal insult when things don't go exactly the way we want them done and often we are too quick to make our displeasure known, hurting the people around us.  The amount of money spent on blood pressure medication, and pills to prevent stomach upset and ulcers should convince us that not only are we being hurtful to others, we are physically hurting ourselves.

    We need to take time and remember that the God who made dandelions also cares for all of our "grown-up" needs as well.  Breath deep and slowly.  Read Matthew 6:25-34