When I moved to Tennessee as a kid, my parents bought a property with a creek bed running through it. This creek bed was severely overgrown, it hadn’t been maintained for many years, if at all. In the creek, there were tons of vines growing on the trees, choking out all the plants, sucking the nutrients out of the ground. These vines had massive thorns on them and just trying to walk through the trees and the creek was nearly impossible; you would end up with scratches all over your exposed skin if you attempted to do so. 

Because of this, my dad (our project man!) made it his ultimate goal to completely clear out this creek and remove the vines in order to help the trees and plant life flourish (also, just to make it look healthier and prettier). So my days during the week were spent exploring the creek with my dogs, and my weekends were spent clearing out all the vines, from the root up. Even in the summer, we had to wear long sleeves and thick gloves in order to protect ourselves from the thorns, and even then, we would end up with scratches everywhere. Plus, there were also poison vines that made your skin itchy if you touched them, so if you were unlucky enough to get scratches and that itchy poison on you, you were in for a rough couple of days.

It’s safe to say we were pretty miserable doing it, especially when it was summer break and Tennessee was an unbearably hot and humid 98° F (36° C). All we kids wanted to do was jump in a swimming pool and stay in there forever. But Dad was determined, and as the years went by, I became almost (almost… it was my free time, after all) equally invested in freeing the creek from everything that was suffocating it. 

The reason is simple: the more we cleared out, the more natural beauty we could see revealing itself as time went on.

The trees flourished, soft green grass and flowers like daffodils and wild violets all began popping up. Free from thorny vines, the creek took on its own unique and charming beauty that was pleasing to see and appreciate. Like I said, I spent a lot of my time in that creek, jumping from rock to rock and sticking my feet in the cool, clear water; seeing it become free from vines was like cleaning the mud off of a priceless treasure to me.

Now, I’m not trying to make you envious of my childhood (and those pleasant memories were the rewarding moments; the other hours I spent in scorching heat with a giant pair of clippers are NOTHING to be envious of), I am recalling these memories, pleasant or unpleasant, to make a point.

When I previously talked about boundaries in an article, and even before that, when I talked about a person’s comfort zone; I mentioned a wall of thorns that we place around ourselves after we get hurt or suffer a setback in life. I was thinking about it the other day, and I suddenly remembered those ugly thorn vines that I spent one too many weekends cutting and pulling down as a kid. It occurred to me that the wall of thorns we put up around ourselves when we’ve been hurt is a lot like those vines: it chokes out all the good growth in our lives and steals the nutrients and experiences we need to grow, for itself. And the existence of the thorns invites other things to grow in your garden, like those annoying poison vines. We end up getting choked out by all the vines and thorns, and once they start to grow, they’re incredibly difficult to get rid of.

It took us seven years to almost fully clear out that creek and restore it so that it flowed freely and the trees were able to flourish. Seven years to completely restore an area to its original beauty. 

Think about the wall of thorny vines we place around ourselves: how long do we let it grow and take over our lives? 

Some people might even look at the wall of thorns overtaking their own roots and say, “Well, this is just how I am. These thorns are a part of me now.” They accept them without realizing that the wall of thorns not only chokes out all the good things trying to grow in their lives, but also prevents anyone from getting too close to them. They accept all the thorny things about their reactions and actions as part of their character, without realizing that the thorns are not who they are at all.

Like I said, it’s good to have boundaries and lines for people, but a wall of thorns is self-destructive, because you are not controlling it, no matter how much you think you are: it is controlling you. Fear of getting hurt and fear of the unknown will eventually choke out every bit of natural beauty and strength you were born with, leaving you stuck withering away. The wall of thorns will, inevitably, leave you miserable and alone.

That is why it is important to clear away the thorns we surround ourselves with, and instead rely on what we know: we have value as a person in this world, and in order to grow and shine in that value, we have to live our life willing to break out of our wall of thorns (or fears). Relying on the thorns will only trap ourselves in our own fears and leave us in pain. And I know, I know it’s hard to remember that we as human beings have value while we are within that wall of thorns, because by the time any kind or loving words reach us through all that, they too have been scratched, poisoned and damaged. It’s hard to believe in words that feel like they’ve been shoved through our defenses. The words fall flat because we are peeking at the world through a lens that is distorted by all the of the vines wrapping themselves around us, keeping us in the same place. But I want you to know that you do in fact have value in this world, but in order to truly fulfill the purpose of your life, you have to be willing to take down your wall of thorns.

Now, it’ll be painful to clear out all the thorns, this is true. I know it feels like if we stay inside of that wall of thorns, even if we are getting suffocated to death, it seems as though it will be less painful to stay, than to try and break out of them. But in order to be able to breathe freely, we have to clear away the thorns, no matter how scary it looks and feels. We don’t realize, when we are in that mess, that we are unable to really see anything in the world clearly. A lot of times, we think that the perspective we have is as a result of all the pain we went through, and we have a right to use that pain to protect ourselves.

But, you see, taking down the wall of thorns does not signify that the pain we went through is meaningless, but rather we are choosing to say that our own life means more than the pain we suffered.

We always have a choice. Maybe the pain we had to go through to get to this point was something we had no choice in, because it was inflicted on us by others, but we get choose whether or not that pain is more important than our lives. Do we really want to say that the things we went through are more important than our own value? Isn’t that just letting the people that hurt us continuously hurt us every single day, from the moment we wake up in the morning?

Letting go of that pain is important. Being willing to clear away all the thorns from the beautiful garden that is ourselves is extremely important.

Have you guys ever seen the movie The Shack? (I know there’s a book, but I haven’t gotten the chance to read it yet. This is one of the rare occurrences where I have seen the movie, but have not read the book. Oops.) Anyway, there’s a scene where our main character is talking to the Holy Spirit, and she reveals that the beautiful, wild garden they are standing in is, in fact, the main character’s heart and soul. It is himself.

That’s what I think of when I imagine the garden that is me: all my favorite flowers and trees growing wildly and freely in the same place, and maybe a little creek in there, too. If I think about the vines of thorns invading that place and destroying the plants I love, that are me, I understand why it’s so important to let go of pain, anger, and bitterness in order to breathe and grow freely.

Think about it: even if you love cactuses or rose bushes, which naturally grow thorns (I, for one, definitely imagine a blackberry bush in my garden. Yum), would you want something to come in and choke them out, keeping them from blooming as they should? Would you be able to tolerate the invasion of all that pain destroying everything you have worked so hard to grow over the years? Looking at it from the perspective of something I have nurtured and encouraged to grow being suffocated by something else that shouldn’t be in my garden, I say absolutely not. I don’t want to torture my plants and kill them through negligence, telling them to accept the thorns as a part of themselves. Eventually, they will die from the pain and the misery. So should I do that to myself? Should I allow things to sprout up where they don’t belong and allow them to take over my life?

I don’t think any of us should.

Being willing to cut all that pain down and taking it out from the roots does take courage, and it takes being willing to stand up for ourselves, even against our own pain, but it is worth all of that.

Because on the other side of it all, we will look back and wonder: what were we so afraid of? The fear of being hurt actually held us back from experiencing joy in life. And the joy we feel after cutting away all the thorns in life will push the memory of that pain far, far away, because it is no longer important. What is important, is that the garden, which is ourselves, is allowed to flourish and bloom once all that fear and pain is taken away. We are left with the very core of ourselves, and that is what makes us most special; because, just like that creek that had its own unique sense of beauty, no one’s garden is the same. The only way to fully appreciate our own value, and other people’s value, is by removing the vines of thorns around ourselves and revealing the garden behind it all, along with the unique person that is that garden. But only we, ourselves, can remove those thorns in us, so we have to be brave enough to face them, and to remove them, from the root up.