Necessary Extraction

 I'm out for my walk, and I see my elderly neighbor checking on her plants and wildflowers that flank both sides of her long driveway. As we do here in this neighborhood, I call out a friendly howdy. After a couple minutes of talking about the maintenance people - how they should've been more careful last time they were here taking out brush around the power lines - we find ourselves in an interesting conversation about self-care, gratitude, and the power of choice. I haven't ever chatted for this length of time with her, and I already know we both come from completely opposite perspectives on most things. We do not worship the same, vote the same, or think the same in many regards but somehow, in this moment, we're finding common ground... a rarity in this day of divisiveness. Without naming names or issues, we're still agreeing on the things that matter: the ability to discuss without demeaning, the necessity of an open mind, the power to decide one's own attitude. 

Fittingly, after a fairly lengthy chat, she points out an invasive species of weed-plant that has been taking over the ditches everywhere this summer. I've seen it before. She asks if I know anything about it, and I have to admit that I don't. Of course, she's the garden expert so she explains to me its origins, which I find quite interesting. She goes on to say that, even though it's a beautiful color, it chokes out everything else and needs to be pulled up. But then she adds, "The only way to get rid of it is to mow. Mow, mow, mow. And even then, it takes six years for it to fully go away!" Immediately, I'm struck by the metaphor: that some things inside of ourselves take a long time to remove. Even with the best of intentions and the most diligent of habitual work, the roots can remain, ready to re-emerge at the slightest opportunity and attempt to spread again. 

As I bid my neighbor goodbye and continue my walk, I keep thinking about how we often expect the worst parts of ourselves - the most invasive and unwanted things - to just start going away as soon as we wake up to their presence. Once we know they must leave and begin the process of removal, we anticipate we will see dissipation fairly soon after. But some wounds, some triggers, some coping mechanisms don't die that easy. We can pull them up at the surface level and think we've gotten everything, but the roots run deep and soon, they spring back up somewhere else, leaving us frustrated and defeated. While certain patterns can be reversed in relatively short order, others run too deeply to leave that fast and, in those cases, we must accept that the journey to healing will be longer than we'd like. 

We all have parts of ourselves that we wish we could just snap our fingers and they'd be gone for good. We all know those places in our lives that annoy us, discourage us, depress us, anger us. Every single time they rear their ugly head, we feel like we've taken a step back... kind of like mowing over and over but still seeing that pesky weed coming up every year. After awhile, even with the work we've put in, we wonder if it'll ever leave. If we'll ever be free of that part we dislike so much. And yet, here is where a strange truth starts to set in: God may or may not give you final victory over that place. It sounds harsh, but it's facts. Sometimes, God leaves a thorn in your side in order to create greater dependence upon Him and remind you of the fact that you need Him (2 Corinthians 12:7-10). Sometimes He (figuratively-speaking) puts your hip out of joint so that your limp will always keep you humble and self-aware (Genesis 32:25). As I remember reading a wise person once put it, "He will either give you grace to change or grace to remain the same."

I think sometimes we think our entire healing journey has to be this continuous progressive pathway whereby we find ourselves always moving upward, forever improving in the areas we know need to change. And, to a large extent, that is true. Deep-seeded transformation is a huge part of the process. Without it, we fail to grow. But also, we need to make peace with the fact that certain desires or weaknesses or flaws may still stick with us or, at the very least, take longer to untangle that others. Not everything will reverse in a day, and we shouldn't expect it to be so. Of course, we shouldn't give up on ourselves just because something isn't improving as fast as we'd like. Having healthy goals for our personal life absolutely matters! But settling out of defeatism versus accepting the imperfection within us are two totally different mindsets. We can be aware of and befriend the fact that we will never be totally perfect and striving for such is a futile endeavor while also still working toward some level of wholeness and improvement in those areas. 

All of us have some form of unwanted, invasive ugliness that needs to be extracted. But how we go about that process makes all the difference: are we trying to do it on our own, or are we leaning into the offered Grace at our disposal? are we expecting to be liberated from that thing instantly, or are we willing to give it time? are we working toward improvement while also accepting that this may our own form of a limp or thorn? The approach we take determines everything. Yes, this undesirable part of us needs a divine extraction. Yes, our cooperation with the One who alone can remove it is necessary. But equally so is also our finding a way to make peace with ourselves as we are. Still desiring to be better, but also learning to love and like ourselves as the One who created us does. Our flaws are very much present, but they are not our entire identity. We are more than our weaknesses, and we need to learn how to view ourselves as such.