This little orchid is the first orchid I bought myself, with the help of a few friends- I was in the orchid section for a LONG time choosing. To my utter disappointment, the orchid started to weep shortly after it came home with me. All the roots had rotted. Being sentimental, I trimmed a couple of the rotted roots and repotted this little baby before I moved up to Brisbane. Now, a few months later, the baby wasn't looking too flash. So today, once and for all, I cut off every single dodgey root. And there really wasn't much left to support this plant. Oh well, better than having rotten roots. 

And this is a strong reflection of what I learned in church today. We were covering the book of Judges in the Old Testament during Sunday classes. The pattern was that the Israelites sinned, they suffered, then they would cry to God for help, and God would forgive them (God would send them a judge to lead them), when the judge died, again the Israelites would sin again (this time worse than the last). This is because the root of the problem stayed, they couldn't drive out their enemies and became influenced by foreign Gods and intermarried with foreigners, turning away from the will of the one true God. 

It's a strange parallel to draw from the book of Judges to my little orchid baby. I know I should have cut off all the roots, but I couldn't' bear it, and so I came up with re-current problem of a weak plant. Can my little baby survive with only 2 tiny roots? In hindsight it was so blindingly obvious. If it's going to cause long term damage cut it off, get rid of those rotten roots. The Israelites couldn't do it. I couldn't even do it with a plant. I was really really compelled to address a rotten root in my own life today. It had been sitting in the background for a while now, and if it stayed in my life for any longer, it would just affect other areas of my life. Maybe this fresh start would be for both my plant and I, a big risk to take for us both.