I don’t know if it’s from my photography and filmmaking, or just the changes in my heart these last few years, but these lush spring days have me swooning over the masses of weeds growing in my yard, and the yards I pass by on my runs. I get that most people don’t like weeds, weeds are a nuisance, an eyesore, and a disruption of their perfectly pristine yards. But this year all I see are; the purples, the yellows, the blues and whites, so rich in color and texture, growing up from wild, untouched lawns. Yes, they are classified as a weeds, but blooming from those weeds, are tiny little flowers, eager to spread their color across our yards. Eager to be picked by chubby little hands and given with love to their mothers, to then be put in a bud vase in the kitchen windows, adored by the sweetness of our little ones. But they are met with contenders, such as lawnmowers, weedkiller, and those, eye gauging, weed plucker thingys. But there is something very wonderous about weeds. And it’s the fact that they just show up, uncontrolled and unpowered by human hands. Not lined up in rows of seed or bulbs to make something pleasing to the eye, and yet a bit unsettling in it’s perfection. The weeds are just there, and they show up when new life occurs all around us, in the renewing of spring. We bask at the sight of cherry blossoms and flowering trees, yet we scowl at the weeds in our lawns, because it doesn’t quite give the image of a perfect yard, a perfect house, a perfect life.

What are the weeds in you, that you have trampled down, plucked away and tried to kill off with toxins? Are there pieces of your heart that give you joy, give you purpose, and fill you with love, but because you’ve been taught they aren’t the image of perfection, they should be hidden away and removed for good? I think life was supposed to be filled with weeds, that the weeds growing in us are really who we are, they were already here. They just showed up when God made us. But this world we have grown accustomed to, has told us our lawns need to be one color of green and cut at the right level with no weeds that stand out in the perfect blades of grass. We live in this external world that make us feel the same about our bodies, how we look, what we do with our life, and what our homes look like to other people, even how our children look to others. We worry so much about what others think about and what we look like to someone else that we pull every last weed that may made us look different, because it brought judgement or disapproval from an other who did not know our heart. But those weeds that you have been made to feel ashamed of, maybe, just maybe they were meant to be there, they are a part of you that made you YOU, that was woven into your heart and soul as you grew in your mother’s womb. And to remove that part of you and take it away, even though it was that one thing that gave you life, gave you purpose, now empties your soul and teaches you to rely on external things to fill you up, rather than the fire that once existed inside of you.

I find my heart in search of the weeds that grew up into my heart as a baby, but were eventually stamped out for various reasons. My body and soul have been longing to let those weeds grow up once again and let the light shine on their beautiful colors and textures.