Weeds and Roses

I have spent the day in the garden digging out grass and pulling weeds. 

We have moved into the old family home that my grandfather and his brothers built in 1920. My grandmother kept the yard pristine. After her, my mother kept the yard pristine. But two years ago this summer Mother was ill with cancer, and I took care of her. I didn't keep the garden pristine that year while she was sick. After she died, Bob and I served a mission so last summer no one kept the yard pristine at all. 

Now it is two years later, and the weeds and grass have taken over.  I'm reclaiming the land, but it's a lot of work to get from weeds to roses.

There is a great life lesson in all this. If I let my life go—as in not reading my scriptures or writing or caring for my family, my life can go to weeds. 

I seem to have this built in mechanism that makes me depressed if I don't read my scriptures, irritable if I don't do some writing, and lonely if I don't connect with my family, so I tend to stay on task.

Sad that my motivators are depression, anger, and loneliness. 

But if I do stay on task I feel peace when I read my scriptures, energized when I write, and joy when I'm with my family.

So I like to look at the 'roses' side of things. I love to feel peace, energy and joy. But I want to remember how hard it is to get from weeds to roses. When I finally get the weeds out of the roses in the yard, I hope I never let them come back. 

To be realistic, there will always be some weeds, but I'll keep them to a minimum,

What about you? Is your life weeds or roses? Probably, like the rest of us, it's some of both.