Embracing Resilience: Life Lessons from Dandelions

Welcome back to a little calmer week in the Mitton Household. Perhaps calmer, but no less busy. Unfortunately, the weather didn’t cooperate with all we wanted to accomplish this past weekend, but here we are nonetheless. It has certainly been a wet, dismal few days. And here we are back on a Tuesday post! Back on track (at least for now! lol) Last week, we decided to sit with a little theme on “The Humble Dandelion”. Consequently, we’ll jump right in with my thoughts: Dandelions are seemingly very resilient!

Despite the rainy weather, we did get a little break in the clouds on Sunday… just enough for me to plant a few pots of annuals in our otherwise full front garden. The hubby cut the grass. As I sauntered down the side steps of the porch, I was struck by two things: One, a huge dandelion with about 4 blooms growing out of the gravel of the paving stones, and two, how many dandelions were back after cutting the lawn! Resistant and resilient!

I’ve heard it said that grass lawns started as a sign of wealth. Pick a non useful, time consuming -to- grow crop, like grass, and flood your front lawn with it to prove yourself worthy to the neighbours. Who came up with that plan? We should have just let the wildflowers and weeds alone and filled our yards with colour… the yellow dandelions are there anyway! And they even grow in the poorest soil (in my case gravel!) of the side pathway. In abundance! I haven’t pulled it out yet… just because. Just because it’s showing me that yup, I am here and here with a vengeance!

And since we’re using A.I. why not generate an image…this is not my path… and dandelions have leaves too! 🙂

Let’s explore it a bit more, shall we? Admittedly, A.I. generated some interesting thoughts on the “resilience of dandelions”, so, although not my own thoughts, they accompanied my musings so well, I thought I’d share. We already talked about their persistence. Those little blooms can get mowed under and still pop back up, seemingly unharmed. They can withstand the harsh environments! Dandelions are certainly adaptable. Perfectly manicured lawns are dotted with them occasionally when the owners slip up, and open fields, rocks, hills and my gravel pathway see the spring returns of the weed. They’ll grow anywhere!

I suppose blooming in adversity and taking root in difficult places coincide – demonstrating their ability to adapt to harsh environments, they easily overcome adversity. Plus, dandelions seemingly have the ability to find solutions to said adversity, and bloom and grow even in challenging situations. Persistence. Perseverance. Adaptability. Do you see where I am going here? Of course you do. Obviously, we can take a little lesson from the God-given weeds. The humble yellow flower.

Take chances. Make mistakes and get mowed under, but rise to the challenge and pop up again, unfazed. Our environments should not dictate how we bloom for Jesus. The rocky soil may be tough, but we can do it. Do you work or play in a “ungodly” place? Do you hear the words and struggle to remain holy in an unholy environment? If God can give the little dandelion a place to bloom and flourish every spring, then He certainly has plans for you to “bloom where you are planted”!

Photo by photokip.com on Pexels.com

It’s a simple concept. Perhaps even a Sunday School lesson, not one fit for an internet blog post, but if A.I. can pump it out, then I suppose it is worth thinking about at least! So, go ahead. Pluck that weed out of your pathway, but pause and think about how it survived there in the first place. God helped that little seed float on its way. Perhaps blown in the wind by some little puff from a toddler delighting in the parade of white seed parachuted away by a huff! Then it floated and settled not where it was comfortable or easy, but where it was rocky and harsh. Yet, it survived and thrived! Now go out and do the same, my friend, do the same!

Embrace Dandelions: Life Lessons from Nature

Oh my beloveds! I am already behind a week and a day! We missed last week, and almost missed this one! There simply just hasn’t been a second to sit down with ya’ll and have a chat! Not that I haven’t been thinking of you! I have! Perhaps I am just getting overwhelmed with all my chores, or too old to keep up… or who knows what! Yet, here we are, behind again and making it work. So, this post, too, will be short and sweet, but I want to introduce a little “theme” that I have brewing for the next few weeks. A thought in my brain that I want to touch on for the next few blog posts. It’s not a new topic to us, but one I have been thinking of again: Dandelions.

Seems a little weird, eh? It hit me a few weeks ago, when at my uncle’s funeral, the pastor mentioned Psalm 103. Verse 15 starts by saying:

“Our days on earth are like grass, like wildflowers, we bloom and die. 16 The wind blows, and we are gone — as though we had never been here.”

Like those teeny yellow “weeds” that appear in the spring all over our field, we come, and suddenly, we are gone again. I read a cute little devotional that says we should be more like dandelions: without being asked or prodded, we should “pop up” in places where we can be seen as Jesus… and then be hard to get rid of… until the right time! It’s true. The sides of the country roads along my daily commute is a sea of yellow right now. And, it reminds me to be present. Be visible. “Pop” in where you need to be.

As I mentioned, these little wildflowers are not foreign to mittonmusings.com. But we’re going to sit here for a little bit. And so, if you’re new here, take a look at where we’ve been before.

We’ll see you again, real soon!

How Nature’s Harmony Reflects Life’s Lessons

Welcome back to another episode of me and my little piece of the internet. The hubby asked me what I was writing about this week. I told him “symbiotic relationships”. He gave me the blank “okay fine” look and slowly walked away. I hope you don’t feel the same way. Let’s see where this thought goes, shall we? I hope by the end of this post you don’t “okay fine” stare and keep scrolling. I hope it makes you smile. So, yes, I was thinking about how cool it was that things all mesh together. Classic science calls this “symbiosis”. It’s where two different species have a relationship that somehow connects. For example, anyone who’s watched Finding Nemo knows about the clown fish and sea anemone. The fish gets protection and the anemone gets its daily cleaning from the fish. This is a fairly positive relationship. Parasites are an example of a negative symbiotic relationship… only one half benefits. The other half usually gets eaten. You can dig deeper if you want, but my original muse kind of expanded from there.

Therefore, we need to back track a little. This winter has been quite snowy. Snow has piled high and there was storm after storm. Most of us are sick of it. Finally, this weekend, it rained and rained. In fact, there was a thunderstorm with lightning and thunder. The rain has washed quite a bit of the snow away and we are finally seeing some grass on the ground (and mud… but that’s a topic for a different day). This is where my brain went: How cool is it that God set science in motion to bring rain to wash away snow. And this for that, and that for this, and … well you get it. Life and seasons all work in such as way to progress.

Time keeps ticking. We age. Life moves on whether we like it or not. The sun rises and sets and we mere humans can do very little to stop it. I think about all we do to mess it up. We cut down the rain forests, we pollute, and politics erase borders and plot, kill and pillage. History is full of human attempts to mess up God’s design for the perfect world and all that ebbs and flows naturally. At least that’s how I see it most of the time.

Perhaps that’s a pessimistic view of the world, and we should change the direction of this rant. Let’s go back to a mutualistic symbiotic ideal earth… where we all get along and benefit from others. You have to admit, it’s pretty cool that two species just hang together and help. Did you know that there is a bacteria designed simply to help the cow digest its food? Just living its best life in the warm, juicy rumen stomach breaking down all those cow yummies. Only a creative, imaginative God could set (even the fallen) world in order. And then keeps it ticking.

“Takes a licking and keeps on ticking”

We tapped our trees tonight for maple syrup. There’s grass. The chickens are so happy to be out and about again. The bunnies will soon be back in their run soaking up the sun. The pool and pond will eventually melt completely and be green again so the hubby can start his quest for pool boy of the year all over! Spring has finally started – as we knew it would eventually – and I am just feelin’ it! Are you?

Our pastor spoke on worry this past week. Admittedly, I’m not a huge worrier. I know, lucky me. It’s because of muses like this. I see how the world around me simply keeps on moving on, and me worrying cannot add a day to it. I get the whole “birds don’t sow or reap but they eat just fine” verse. I see it. And I hope after reading today’s post, you see it a bit more clearly, too. Happy Spring, my beloveds: Enjoy it!! God designed it to be a new start to refresh us all!