Flowers or Weeds

I have been going out each morning after taking the kids to school/bus stops and picking flowers for myself to put into the kitchen.  My mom gave me these fabulous white Peony bushes, and between the 3 gardens I have, many more flowers can be found.

Last year weeding was just not on the priority list.  Being rediagnosed in May left little time to tend to gardens of flowers.  But Shelly and I did manage to fix up the largest of them.  Actually, Shelly fixed it- I had a front seat driver position.  This garden happens to be full of many of her plants I received because she was moving her flower beds a few years back.  That bed has our bench-the bench I really only sit on with my girlfriends.

The middle garden is the one that was so very neglected.  It was more a grass garden.  After this years rediagnosis, I started weeding it.  It went something like this.  Oh, that's a weed-pull hard, whip weed across the yard.  Ah, another one-pull weed, get the root! Smile. Whip it across the yard.  You get the picture.  This garden used to have beautiful hostas that were HUGE and gorgeous.  Our lovely deer had huge brain farts and decided they were food.  They ate them, for 2 years straight, before they even matured to their huge size.  And normally, I'm ok with that because they eat them after they have bloomed, after the hummingbirds come home to me, after the beauty of the flowering plant has passed.  Stinking deer.

This year I have to keep these gardens in tip top shape!  We have a graduation next summer.  (Yes I did just get a stomach ache).  I want my gardens to be pretty.  Pure and simple selfish ambition.  But some of my friends are helping with.

I am also determined to plant a veggie garden.  DETERMINED.  I have my seeds and will be getting them started today.  Then the kids have about 4 days to finally complete preparing the area I want to use for the garden.  Not that it's been 3 years or anything....

The flowers I have been picking are Iris's, daisies, flox, and weeds.  There are so many super gorgeous flowering weeds.  The orange, some white and some yellow weeds just add so much to my very purple floral arrangement.

So I was thinking about how much a weed compliments a flower.  I am not sure, in human terms who the flowers are or who the weeds are but I suspect we are both at times in our lives.  At this point, I'm a flower, high maintenance, not easily grown, and constantly need to be reminded about the beauty all around me.  And man am I thankful for all the beauty that has become my source of comfort and help.  I suppose Jesus is the ultimate flower, and we are all his little weeds.  To me and my life and situation you are all flowers or weeds to me.  Some of you are good at the high maintenance aspect of the cancer journey, and others are weeds, here to help, to make me feel better, look better, smile more and recognize true beauty.

Thank you Lord for the true beauty of your creation.  Thank you that we are able, with your help and the help of others, to tend to our gardens as needed, picking weeds, pruning, planting and growing those beautiful traits of yours, making them ours.  I thank you for making me both a weed and a flower.  My happy place is as a weed.  But my current place is as a flower.  Help me Lord to accept that and to flourish in it, and to take very seriously the need for me to be a flower, to need others.  And Lord, thank you so much for my weeds.  They are so beautiful.

Vicki