The Day My FALSE Indigo Was Mistaken for Weeds (And What It Taught Me About TRUE Grace)

A Lesson from the Garden

It started with a gasp.

One moment, I was enjoying the sunshine and a bit of productive weeding. The next moment, my helper—bless him—was yanking out my beloved false indigo like it had personally insulted him.

Both the blue and the yellow varieties. Uprooted. Gone. Just like that.

He thought they were weeds.
(They were not.)

To be fair, I’ve made a similar mistake. Years ago, I was at my friend Sharon’s house, happily “helping her”  weed while she was on the phone. She gasped. I had unknowingly decimated a whole patch of her Star of Bethlehem. I thought I was being helpful. Turns out I was being... ambitious.

That memory came flooding back. Along with the urge to scream “Nooo!” in slow motion like a bad movie. But instead—

People Over Plants

I paused. I breathed. And I reminded myself:

People are more important than plants.

Even the really pretty ones that took forever to establish and were just about to bloom. Even then.

So I smiled (a little stiffly), clipped the flower tops off what remained, and popped them into a vase. Because if something’s going to be ripped from the earth, it might as well be pretty on the dining table.

Then I grabbed a trowel, dug a fresh bed, and tucked the roots back into the soil—like tucking in a child who’s had a hard day.

I told myself I’d water them like I still believed they’d bloom again. And you know what? I do.

The Grace of Growing Back

We’ve all pulled the wrong thing before—literally or metaphorically.

Sometimes we make a mess in someone else’s garden.
Sometimes we lose something beautiful by accident (or because someone else did).
Sometimes we look at a life-giving plant and just... don’t recognize it.

That’s where grace comes in.

Grace says: Try again.
Plant again.
Love again.

If my indigo grows back, I’ll celebrate.
If it doesn’t, I’ll still be glad I responded with grace (this time) and not a gardening grudge.

Because in the end, it’s not just about what grows in the ground—it’s about what grows in us.

If this made you smile, nod, or check your own plants twice, keep an eye out for my new podcast: TEA Leaves & Life Lessons — coming in 2026.

It’s a little bit farm, a little bit faith, a little bit “did that just happen?”
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