Lurking In the Deep....

Are plant-eating slugs!  AHHHHH!!!!!  I've been having problems with slugs eating my snap peas and brussel sprouts plants.  The leaves are starting to look like an intricate lace pattern.  I tried several suggestions I found on the web to eliminate them without resorting to chemicals--I tried putting used coffee grounds around the plants, no effect.  I tried putting pine needles around the plants which did help a little.  But the slugs were still happily munching away one leaf at a time.

I was out watering my garden today and noticed my chives starting to look a little pathetic.  I decided to move them out of the south facing spot they have been in for the last two years and move them to a more shady spot to see if less sun would help them rejuvenate.  Well.....

I found the mother load of slugs under the planter.  I almost gagged there were so many slugs.  So I got out a shovel and a piece of scrap wood and started scooping them up and smashing them on the wood until all the ones I could see were dead.  I killed over twenty.  They stunk!  Blah!

Why yes, doesn't everyone garden with a Dora shovel?

Of course situations in nature often cause me to think about parallels to my own life.  Sometimes I have symptoms of a sin affecting my life.  Sin slowly eats away at me one leaf at a time.  I have tried to eliminate the problem by sprinkling coffee grounds around my sin, you know, making a few surface changes to try to shrink the problem.  When the first attempt produces no change, I try a little harder.  I sprinkle pine needles around my sin.  That works for a while, but then the sin gets crafty and works its way around the needles.  You thought you'd had the issue resolved, but the leaves are still being munched away at slowly but surely.

And then something happens to cause a glaring light to shine on your sin--a trial, a comment, a passage in the Bible--suddenly the source of your sin is no longer hidden and the only option left is to pluck the sin out one slug at a time and smash it to pieces so it can no longer harm you.

Now that the sin is no longer eating away at you, eventually the holes in your leaves will heal as you grow.  The leaves on my plants aren't going to fill in any time soon, but the holes left behind in me due to sin will be filled in as Jesus takes up the space left behind.

One slug at a time I am growing that much closer to Jesus, that much freer until I am as beautiful and whole as this unaffected plant.