In the weariness of winter, I start to think about planting my garden. I know it is way too early to put seeds in the ground, but peat cups and potting soil are my friends. I plant my tomatoes, peppers and cabbages in peat cups so they can get an early start on the season.
If my seeds are good, I know they will be sprouting and growing in a couple of weeks. My tomato seeds will yield tomatoes, pepper seeds will grow into peppers and my cabbage seeds always turn into cabbages. I am never surprised, that is, unless the vendor gets the seeds in the wrong package. That happened to my mother once; she thought she was planting zinnias and as they grew, she noticed those plants didn’t look like zinnias. In fact, they looked more like Chinese elm trees. That is what they were. To Mother’s dismay, she had an entire row of trees that had to be pulled as common weeds and no zinnias that season.
Often, I have thought how like planting and harvesting is the fertile soil of our minds. We are inundated with thousands of thoughts every day. Like seeds, they will grow if we allow them to take root. It doesn’t take much for a seed to be planted and take root. Often, I am attacked by a tune on the radio. I hear it once and I catch myself humming it or hearing the haunting notes in my mind for hours afterward. The seed of the song is planted. If I listen to the tune often enough, it will become part of my mind’s garden. I can recall it anytime, anywhere. Sometimes, I don’t even have to think about it, and it attacks me again without warning.
Pictures are like that, too. Our minds snap a picture of every image we see and stores them for ready retrieval. Like the tune from the radio, sometimes those images attack us without warning. We suddenly find ourselves reviewing the image with the same emotion we felt when we first saw the image. If those images are coupled with a strong emotion, like fear, love or disgust, they will return more readily. I have seen images I have had to pray to forget. They bring such bad memories. I have learned to be very careful of what I watch in the media. I don’t want the recall of horrid images.
On New Year’s Eve, I held a new great-grandson. His innocent little face looked up at me with perfect trust and love. His eyes were bright, and his tiny lips formed his first smiles. He was so sweet. That is an image of sweetness I will carry through my life. His smiles are evidence of purity and the outward expression of an empty, fertile garden. His mind is not crowded with the vendor’s destructive weeds. Everything is sweet and beautiful. At least that is the way it is in my little great-grandson’s world. People talk to him with kind words and give him confidence at every turn. People express love and give kisses freely. He is the center of attention most of the time. His little mind garden is full of images of people smiling at him and his sense memory is crowded with sounds of love.
I have adopted children who didn’t get that beautiful mind garden in the beginning of their lives. Seeds of discord and conflict were planted in their young minds. Words and images in their lives were hateful and ugly. These children harvested the seeds the harsh world planted for them. Some were seeds packaged incorrectly by the vendor, but they grew anyway. Where there should have been sounds of love, there were sounds of fighting and abuse. Because of that beginning, one child created a comfort zone tuned to chaos. She did not feel comfortable if life was peaceful. She had to stir the pot of trouble to satisfy her need for chaos.
Another child grew up wandering through the streets finding food and shelter wherever it was. The seeds of wanderlust and attitudes of a victim still plague him.
Another child grew seeds of distrust and rebellion. He grew up with the flower of oppositional defiance growing in his heart. That has caused him years of grief. He fought with teachers who tried to teach him the basics of reading, writing and math. He fought with the laws of the land and found himself in jail more than once. The seeds that were planted grew and overtook his fruitful garden. The love that was shown him in our home was obscured by mistrust planted by other adults in his past.
It has taken years, and will still take years, to pull the plants that grew in the minds of these children. Even as adults, they battle with the seeds planted in their youth by people who should have protected and paid special attention to them, yet they were abandoned to the predators of the world. I am reminded of one of the parables of Jesus:
“Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field: But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way. But when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also. So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares? He said unto them, An enemy hath done this. The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up? But he said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn.”
—Matthew 13:24-30 (KJV)
My heart goes out to those whose minds have been filled with tares to grow with the wheat. With no fault of their own, some children grow up with a field of tares growing in their minds. They are not able to understand why their lives are so miserable. They, like the rest of us, fall prey to the Stephen Covey adage of, “Sow a thought, reap an action; sow an action, reap a habit; sow a habit, reap a character; sow a character, reap a destiny.”
Our minds are magnificent gardens. They will yield whatever we plant, even if the vendor gives us bad seeds. Seeds will come up just as they are planted. If we nourish those seeds of thought, by thinking about them over and over, we are giving those thoughts nourishment, just as we give our plants sun and water. Whatever we nourish will grow. Self-deprecating thoughts will yield self-deprecating words and actions. Self-confident thoughts will yield self-confident behavior.
“Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.”
—Proverbs 4:23 (KJV)
In other words, watch what you plant in your mind. Even as adults, whatever we plant and nourish will grow. If we do not pay attention to our thoughts but allow ourselves to watch, read and listen to whatever is available without any thought of what is going into our minds, we are planting tares that will grow and overrun our garden.
It is especially important to guard the minds of our young children. They do not know how to eradicate bad images, words or philosophies. They cannot escape their influence except by replacing them with the truth, and where will they find the truth if someone doesn’t take time to teach them?
“And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”
—John 8:32 (KJV)
The truth is, Jesus is the answer. Only faith, prayer and trust in the atonement of Jesus Christ will separate the wheat from the tares in these young lives. He can give us a new garden, new seeds and new sunlight. We do not have to continue to live lives overgrown with tares that choke out our happiness.
