“Image courtesy of Simon Howden/FreeDigitalPhotos.net”.

Yesterday Tom and I spent the day in our garden. It was something we’ve needed to do for a long time, but kept putting off. It was hard pulling up our African Irises that had overgrown the planter where they had been for several years. We could have thinned them out each year, but we didn’t. The job was too much for me, so all I could do was help Tom put the spent plants in the garbage can.

Once the irises were removed, we raked the bed to uncover roots that had broken off when the plant was pulled out of the ground.  Then, we spread bulb fertilizer over the fresh dirt getting the bed ready for my dinner plate dahlias. I love irises, and I love dahlias. One isn’t better than the other, they’re just different.

Why do I tell you all this?

Because marriage is a lot like our flower bed. It can be beautiful, but in need of work. We can choose to be diligent each day and thin out what is no longer needed, or we can wait until the work is much more difficult. In either case, the flower bed will be better off in the long run.

We may have had a season of one blessing where God is replacing it with something new and just as beautiful. But until we see what is growing next it can be hard to let go of what was familiar.

I’m grateful for a husband who is willing to get his hands dirty to pull up the roots in our marriage that need to go. And he is more than happy to plant the good nutrients back into our relationship. I love to water the newly planted bulbs waiting for them to sprout through the ground. I love the anticipation of what my dahlias will look like this year. Tom plants, I water, but it is God who causes the growth. And we are grateful for the growth we’ve seen.

“Image courtesy of Grant Cochrane/FreeDigitalPhotos.net”.

We’re in a season of helping our married son and his family pull up roots of their own. But this kind is where they will move from living a mile away from us to another state where they will put down roots in a new flower bed, so to speak. It will be hard work, but I trust that what God is doing is good–very good. I may not see the bulbs growing yet, but I will. The flowers may not be familiar to me, but I will grow to love them when I see the growth that God provides in their marriage.

In the meantime, this is hard work and it hurts.

What roots have you had to work together to pull out of your marriage? How has God provided fresh beauty as a result?