Jesus said, “I tell you that, if these [the disciples] should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out.” (Luke 19:40 KJV)
Well the stones have not been crying out to me but the grass has! And it is talking strongly so please hear what it is saying.
Wandering about my neglected garden – neglected because of my age! – I find a variety of wild grasses. Most people dismiss grass as simply grass and nothing of interest but I find those wild grasses are full of lessons that teach me something.
The Hares Foot Clover reminds me to tread softly and listen carefully as hares do when they are about but one of my favourite grasses is the ‘Fairy Grass’ that grows a handspan high and which is so fairy-like you hardly notice it. It is just like the fairies I read about in childhood that would take my mind and heart to wonderful imaginings, reminding me of angels I cannot see but the evidence of their presence is real.
So I see in my patches of fairy grass the beauty of the unseen Angel that has silently held me close through the years.
There is also a tiny, bright, pink Star-flower that reminds me to look up to the stars at night to see the night sky with all its unexplored wonders. And there are wild Rose plants that give masses of beautiful pink clumps of roses fading to white as they age – somewhat like hair growing old and turning grey! But there is something wonderful about these wild Roses – they have no thorns!
Then there is something else and it is profound. It is a grass that clings – and I mean clings – and it just won’t let go. It gets on to your sleeves when you bend down and it stays there. You think you have pulled it all away but when you go back indoors, you find it still on your sleeve and more of it is clinging to your shoulders from when you knelt down to smell the Violets.
I wondered what its name might be and searched a weed book to make an incredible discovery. It is called simply ‘Cleavers’ and believe me, it cleaves! But what a lesson it teaches.
Right at the beginning, before there was any wrongdoing or wrong thoughts, the Lord created Adam and Eve and the Lord said, “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.” (Gen 2:24 KJV) They were to cleave together by their own choice, putting a space between them and all others.
But when Adam and Eve failed to cleave together in the full sense, then the Lord Himself took responsibility to give us the meaning of cleaving to Him.
When Barnabas went to Antioch and saw the grace of God, he was glad and, “exhorted them all, that with purpose of heart, they should cleave unto the Lord.” (Acts 11:22,23 KJV)
Paul also exhorts us to, “abhor evil; cleave to that which is good.” (Romans 12:9 KJV). Or, in other words, “stick like glue to that which is good.”
Yes, we can learn grass-roots lessons and Cleavers has lessons that stick like glue.
Elizabeth Price
