Good News!

Good News!

Yesterday I got a phone call and as soon as I heard the voice on the other end, I knew by his tone that it was good news. Wonderful news which was longed and prayed for. I not only wanted to shout Hallelujah and Praise the Lord, because I know he is the one who made it possible, but I also wanted to shout the news out to friends and family.

So I did – to a few. 

Today I have an email asking me to refrain from sharing this until it is made public officially. Oops. Too late. I can back-pedal now and button my lips, as my dad would have said, and I have emailed the friends I shared with but actually, the news is out in a modest fashion. 

Thank goodness I didn’t tweet it. I might have, being new to this social medium and enthusiastic about the Twitter Bug.

Good news is for sharing, of course, but sensitively, and at the right time and in the right way. I’m sure Mary didn’t rush out from her encounter with the angel Gabriel and shout out her good news. We aren’t told how she broke the news to her parents, or to Joseph, but we can be sure it would not have been good news to their ears until the truth of it – God to be born as man through a virgin – was accepted.

This is still the best news the world has ever known, or ever will know. That God, the Creator of the universe, chose to be born into humble circumstances in a miraculous way, but then to live a very ordinary life as if he were an ordinary human being. He was a refugee, a man without a home of his own, a pariah to the authorities, a joke to the soldiers, a martyr. 

His truth, though, is the truth, and he was vindicated on the third day in the tomb, when he rose again to life. 

The great news of the child in the manger is awesome when we know the whole story of his life on earth. Jesus Christ, Saviour. 

That good news is not to be suppressed. But my mouth will keep mum about yesterday’s good news – though in my heart, I’m dancing.

Elder

Ground elder, that is.

A pernicious weed which is gradually claiming my entire flower border. It sends strong white roots in all directions, which then pop up as a new plant before it, too, sends out new roots. It creeps up walls, getting a ‘foothold’ wherever there might be a dabble of dirt. 

You may have seen them growing wild, putting up flower stems at some point in the summer months. I’m on a mission to eradicate them from my flowers, but I think it may be Mission Impossible. The trouble is, the strong root penetrates more viscous roots and then pops a plant out, so that they are all so intertwined that in order to remove the weed, I risk killing the plant or flower as well.

Jesus told a parable about this situation. He said to leave the weeds until the harvest is coming in, lest the plants be killed as well. Of course he was speaking about people, not plants or weeds at all. 

People who live his Life, and people who live a lie. Those bearing fruit, and those which are barren.

I understand the dangers, and don’t want to decimate the many plants which are just beginning to grow after a dormant winter. Neither do I want a crop of ground elder.

That’s why my mission is impossible. I will never succeed in pulling out every single elder plant, because I’m loathe to kill some of my better established flowers. 

I’m so glad that Jesus’ mission was not impossible; that he is the perfect one to save each and every one of us. And that he doesn’t take chances of uprooting a fruitful life, just to dig out a very annoying weed.

He can wait.