Deliverance

In the last 6 months, we've had 2 huge pine trees cut down in our back yard. Not only for safety and plumbing reasons, but also because we'd like to have a vegetable garden. Alas, we couldn't have one... not only were the trees in the way, they also blocked all of the light into the yard.
After cutting the trees, a few things were immediately obvious:
It completely changed the view from our house, allowed tons of sunlight in, and actually will (eventually) change the landscape in the yard as well.
Then we needed to have the stumps ground up in order to kill the roots...because otherwise the roots would have continued to live, and grow into our pipes, for up to 20 more years!! Now that's determined, huh?!
The stump grinder had to go 18 inches deep to really kill the root. Unfortunately, we haven't been able to haul off all of the ground up roots yet. So, now, my backyard looks like a giant gopher has been playing in it along with 2 of its friends! It's a mess!! It's mounds and mounds of mess!! And, though we now have plenty of sunlight, and our pipes are root-free, we can not plant a garden until all of these roots are hauled off.
So, as I've look at it day after day, I realized that this whole experience has been a perfect illustration of how the Lord has been delivering and setting me free this year.

For many years, I have been cutting down problem "trees" in my life, but the roots have continued to flourish. It hasn't been until last year that the Lord began to expose the root of those problems and go deep to take it all out. I've been desperately willing to have Him do this work in my heart. Just like our trees...we didn't get them cut until we were truly tired of the effect they were having on our home.
However, I learned, too, that when the Lord removed something from my heart, it left a mess...holes that needed to be filled with good stuff, like Truth and His Spirit...and rubbish that needed to be hauled out! Thankfully, it's not taking the Lord as long to haul off the rubbish as it's taking us to do the same in our yard :)
After the Lord delivered me, He began to heal me...and like the results in my yard, my perspective has changed, there's more sunlight (or Light from the Son) coming into my heart, and the landscape is slowly changing as well.

Thank God for deliverance...from trees and roots!