"...Cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you..." Genesis 3:17b-18

I was laboring in the earth this weekend.  I pulled weeds, trimmed the bittersweet (it is useless to try and pull it out; I'm not strong enough); cleared out the area between our house and the neighbor's fence (a two-foot wide by ten foot area, so it's hard to work in), and basically I worked until my hair was soaked with sweat, and the sweat dripped down my face despite my hat, and stung my eyes until they watered.

Sunday morning, I was so stiff I could barely get out of bed--but in a weird kind of way, it felt GOOD!

I met the thorns and thistles of the earth--and I conquered them!

I pulled huge patches of ragweed from the left side of the lawn, where it likes to grow. I cleared grass and every imaginable weed from my flowerbed alongside the driveway. I trimmed the bittersweet, everywhere I saw it.

It was exhausting, and I pushed myself too hard, but it was good, good, good to triumph over my enemies the weeds!

Three years ago, my cancer broke me. It left me with painful neuralgia and very thin hair. I developed diabetes. It left me often sleepless, my asthma worse, and the hardest thing of all was the way the chemo sapped my strength and energy. Even when I work hard and gain muscle tone, I don't seem to get stronger. One day I have energy; the next I don't. It is so frustrating, annoying, and such a roadblock to my day--

Yet on I go, adjusting my schedule as best I can to compensate for my energy level and to be useful to my family.

I never expected this aspect of the cancer journey!

Please don't feel as though this will happen to you--everyone is different!  But if you do wake up some morning years from now, and your energy slides away just in getting out of bed--remember the thorns.

This world is a thorny place, both literally and physically. The Scottish love their prickly thistles for they once saved them from the enemy.* But most others detest them. Those irritating little thorns--they work into your skin and sometimes it takes days of soaking and attempts with tweezers to get them out. They scratch and bite at you it seems--making everything so difficult!

But thistles, despite their seemingly lack of usefulness, are useful to God. Isn't it amazing that God can use something we rarely think about, and then only with disgust? But think this way--diabetes. That's a thistle. Neuropathy. That may be many thistles!! Depression, ADHD--thistles. Abuse, anxiety, terrible diseases--thistles. Life circumstances, horrible accidents and unexpected tragedies--all thistles. Lack of sleep, or energy--a huge thistle patch in the middle of a hillside! Cancer—that is an entire field of thistles.

Little thorns and prickles, no matter what we do or where we go.

I'm so thankful for the God who does not merely mow down the thistles in my life. He has a purpose for those thistles that poke and prod and irritate you. Someday they will teach you patience, steadfastness, strength. They will teach you empathy, courage, and encouragement. They will teach you vision and purpose. They will teach you of the Savior's love for you. Those throbbing wounds are worth something, when they turn our hearts toward Him.

Someday--maybe not today or tomorrow or any time soon on this earth--someday He will completely eradicate them as they are. But for now--sometimes they grow thick and tall and seem to choke you. Sometimes they are a single prick that will not go away. Sometimes He mows them, as it were--and sometimes not.

Yet, yet, YET-- have you ever stopped to actually LOOK closely at a thistle flower?!

How the bees love them, especially big fat bumblebees and honeybees. The blossoms are often a strong purple, or deep pink in color. They are decorated with fuzzy little caps atop the stalk, full of sweetness and pollen to attract the bees, butterflies, and other insects. Perhaps that is why they armor themselves so thickly--to protect that precious flower! The leaves and stems are also thick with prickly fuzz, so thick it appears silvery in the light. There are long, stabbing thorns at the lobes of the leaves, like gallant sword-bearers surrounding their precious treasure. And they grow stiff and tall above the other grasses and weeds, and have a tendency to spread rather quickly. And in their own, odd, prickly way, they are beautiful--but I would not encourage you to pick them for a bouquet!

I think we need those prickles in our lives. Sometimes we need stabbing thorns. These remind us of the greater picture, of the knowledge that Jesus wore a crown of thorns for us. They were not thistles, but they bit into his skin and caused him to bleed--for us, the children of His Grace and mercy.

On a day like this, when I am still stiff and sore, when my energy is once again low and there are a thousand thousand things to do--and I may accomplish five of them--

The thistles remind me that though our world is broken and full of hurt and shame and sickness--one day even thistles will be changed.  They will stand proudly in a field, and their thorns will be gone, and little children will pick them for a kitchen table display. And one day, we will awaken with no tiredness or soreness, no diabetes or asthma, no cancer or other evil disease--and our work will be light and filled with joy! We will stand in a field, a purple and pink haze of color, knowing we can wade in and pick them with joy. The constant prickles and thorns of this life will be a forgotten memory. But the thorns that prick and hurt today remind us of our weakness, of our need for Jesus, and the crown of thorns He wore to the cross.

Praise God for the thistles that remind us of Him! 🏞️💓