Tumbling Tumbleweeds

I will never forget the first time I saw a tumbleweed was when my husband took me to visit his family in his home town of Liberal, Kansas.   Bill told me about attending Seward County Community College and using a tumbleweed as a Christmas tree in his dorm room. I became fascinated with these rolling, rambling balls of jumbled up weeds.  I always get a souvenir from places I visit and can you guess what my souvenir was from Liberal, Kansas?  You guessed it……a tumbleweed!  Driving down the long, barren stretches of highway in Kansas, I kept my eyes peeled for that special tumbleweed I could take back home.  “Oh, there’s one” I would shout to my husband.  He would pull the car over and I would take off running along the highway trying to catch a tumbleweed.  I am sure if we had recorded my tumbleweed chasing adventures we might have won something on the show America’s Funniest Home Videos.  When I was finally successful in wrangling a tumbleweed to take home, I was shocked to find out that they are very prickly.  Also, they are a lot bigger than they look, especially when you are trying to fit them in the trunk of your car.  That beloved tumbleweed had a special place in our home for many years until I decided it was time to return it to the wild.

A tumbleweed is formed when a mature Russian thistle plant breaks loose from its roots.  As Christians we need to make sure we have strong spiritual roots so that we do not break loose from our faith and tumble aimlessly through life like the tumbleweed that rolls aimlessly across the land.