THRIPS.
Funny word, right?
I just learned about the word this week and apparently a thrip is a common garden pest that damages plants by sucking their juices and scraping at fruits, flowers and leaves. A species that loves to set up shop in gardens in early spring and if left unhandled will take over an entire garden in just a few weeks.
As an avid urban gardener...
YIKES.
And as an avid urban gardener that just so happens to have thrips making themselves at home on my beloved plants...
DOUBLE YIKES.
This year I started my garden all excited. I decided that this year was going to be the year where I did not have any hiccups. The squash bugs were not going to suck the sap out of my zucchini and cucumbers, the aphids were not going to colonize my plants, the spider mites, well, they were not going to stand a chance!
No... this year was going to be the year that I conquered my little urban garden.
And yet a few weeks into this gardening season I took a look at my plants and knew that while they looked pretty healthy something was off.
Upon realizing this, I promptly took a picture of my plants and uploaded the pictures into my plant diagnosing app and quickly found out I had... *queue dramatic music*
THRIPS.
*screams of horror*
Apparently thrips arrive on the scene whenever you go a little heavy on the insecticide. (hey, like I said, all sorts of bugs have taken my precious plant babies from me year after year and I had had enough!)
But in trying to prevent the bad bugs from eating my garden this year, I also prevented the good bugs from making my garden home. I prevented nature's bouncers from doing their job in keeping my plant babies safe from the big bad bugs.
Oy vey...
But I'm not writing this to tell you about my garden or thrips for that matter (though I do encourage you to try saying thrips three times fast for personal entertainment).
I'm writing this to share with you what happens when we focus a little too much of our energy on keeping bad things out of our lives.
When we raise our defenses a little too high, we too can end up keeping the good stuff from entering our lives.
We all know that person...
That "Negative Nancy" if you will...
The person who is so afraid of being hurt or overwhelmed or so afraid of struggle that they keep everything and sometimes even everyone at a distance...
They isolate themselves. They shut out the people who care about them most because they are convinced that someone or something will hurt them.
Kicking the good out of our lives doesn't protect us; It makes things harder.
We are meant to have good things and people in our lives. We deserve to have that good in our lives. We must have good in our lives in order to be healthy and free.
I write all this to tell you - don't let fear drive your life...
You are destined for greatness - you just have to let a little bit of that greatness into your life first.