Amen Sister Sybil. "Have mercy on me God according to your infinite Love, according to your great compassion. Won't you create in me a clean heart, oh God, restore in me a joy of YOUR salvation."
Regarding the complete registration, I think that I am waiting in a que, or I've made a mistake in my request. I'll try again in a few days if it does not seem to be processed.
Hi Brother Wally! Glad to meet a fellow gardener. We hardly ever keep up with the weeds, if you saw my onions this year, you would probably scold me! I feel shame.
We tend to have a very big section of potatoes (maybe as much as 40x40'), and they block out most of the weeds from their location allowing us to focus weeding in other areas.
I thought that I would post a second garden testimony... This one I call Laodicea in a Strawberry Patch (sorry it is a bit long):
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Laodicea in a Strawberry Patch
An experience from the Summer of 2007
In the spring of this year my wife and I decided to plant strawberry plants in our garden. The wonderful thing about gardening is that the space takes on a life of it’s own. My wife and I are not exceptionally talented gardeners, and the space is mostly one big biological experiment.
Our plan for the strawberries was to lay down plastic mulch, to reduce the weeds, and then plant through the mulch. The theory was that because the patch would be producing for a number of years, the plastic would greatly reduce weed growth. Well, now with a little experience, I can advise that this is not the best laid plan for working a future strawberry patch, but now we will have this construction for the next 4-5 years or so.
The problem with the plastic mulch approach is that during the first season, the new plants lay out a ton of runners that need to root back down into the dirt. With the plastic mulch in place, they cannot root through to the ground, and need constant care.
The other problem we came across is that during the runner growth period the plants must be emitting some type of growth hormone into the soil, as the weeds popping up were just incredible. The end result was that the runners where growing in every direction, we lost all control of the neat rows we had originally formed, and now the weeds were growing over everything!
So, much of my free time was dedicated to “weeding the strawberries”. I began to avoid the patch. My eyes would skip over it when looking at the garden… “Let’s see… asparagus looks good, big green spot to avoid, and now my tomatoes which look good to”. After doing this for a week or two, there was no avoiding it any further. I needed to spend some serious time with the berries, or just give up on them.
So it was pick and pull, pick and pull… Then I stopped something was not right, I looked around but could not figure it out. I looked over the plants, looked over the weeds, something was wrong, but I could not place the problem so I went back to weeding.
Pick and pull, pick and pull. Stop. There was definitely something wrong. I looked around and thought, I must be imagining this, something was not right, but again I could not exactly place it. I walked around the patch looking at the strawberry plants and all those weeds, but still didn’t know what was bothering me… back to weeding.
Then I came across a dead strawberry plant. It was planted through the plastic, and had died, I thought: “funny, there is no weeds on this one…”. Suddenly everything in my mind slid into place, like tumblers in a lock clearing. There was a pattern to the weeds.
The patch is about 20 feet by 20 feet, so I stopped picking and started to examine each plant and each grouping of weeds. This is what I found all over the garden:
- Dead strawberry plant, and no weeds exactly zero, I had about 10 dead plants and every one of them was completely weed free.
- Strong plant, a few weeds, one or two maybe competing with the plant, but the plant was growing fine.
- Medium plant, covered with weeds, these plants would have weeds all over them, and they were overwhelmed and not growing well at all.
So it is with our Spiritual lives. From Jesus we hear the words:
For the dead plants: “Let the dead bury the dead”
For the thriving plants: “I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you. Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me: because I live, ye shall live also.
And, for the lukewarm plants: “I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.”
Lord, may we be: “zealous therefore, and repent.”