Pullling the Mint Tea from the Garden of My Life - Guest Post by Michelle Trostle

Pulling the Mint Tea from the Garden of My Life

In the months leading up to my Grandma’s move to an apartment at a retirement community, she took my mom, my sister, and me on a walk around her flower gardens. We had been on this walk many times before. Grandma spent hours tending to her flowers; she loved to show them off, and we loved to look.

This walk was different. We weren’t just looking but choosing which of the flowers we wanted to dig up and transplant into our own gardens. This was our official goodbye to the gardens she had lovingly tended for more than 40 years.

One of my selections on that day was a clump of irises that bloomed with a purple so dark I called them my midnight iris. I planted them on the side of my house where they would get plenty of sun. For five years, they came up each spring and reminded me of my Grandma’s love. This has become increasingly special in the years following Grandma’s passing.

Our across the street neighbors are also avid gardeners and shared some plants with us, too. I planted some of these plants next to Grandma’s irises. What I did not realize was that these plants shared their dirt with a hitchhiker…mint tea. I love the smell of it and, depending on my mood, enjoy the tea made from it. Tea is a good thing. What I didn’t realize was the invasive nature of it.

For the first two years, I tried to trim it and pluck it to keep it within some sort of a boundary. It defied my wishes and quickly invaded the iris area. I didn’t think too much about the situation. This year it all changed. The irises at the front of my house came up. The irises on the other side of the house came up. The only thing that came up in the bed of Grandma’s irises was mint tea. The root system of the tea had become so vast that it crowded out and withered the iris bulbs.

I set to work last week to recover that bed and decimate the invading mint. As I pulled handfuls of the stuff, I discovered two tiny iris growths. I carefully moved them from harm’s way and continued my attack. After about an hour of pulling and digging, I was covered in dirt and sweat and in need of a break. I sat in the grass, looking at the newly cleared dirt and chugging some water, while God began to speak to my heart.

The mint tea seemed like a good thing when it first came to my flower bed. The negative repercussions of its presence snuck up on me over a period of time. The fundamental truth is that something good (mint tea) became a killer of something great (Grandma’s irises). I felt God challenging me to ask the next logical question: What are the good activities and choices in my life that are killing or crowding out the great things that God has planned for me?

In all honesty, I don’t have an answer for that question. I do believe that it is a question worthy of an answer and so I am dedicated to embarking on the journey of finding that answer and making the necessary changes.

I extend this question to you as well: Have you left space in your life for God’s greatness or are you choking in the goodness?

Dear God, Thank you for challenging me today. Grant me the courage to follow this journey of discovering your greatness and removing the obstacles, even those that present themselves as good. Amen