Blackberries

As I was taking a walk yesterday, sampling some of the wild berries along the path, the image of a yard surrounded by blackberry bushes hit me.  

Picture moving into a new house with a pristine green lawn.  However, the neighboring yards all have blackberries so your new yard is surrounded brambles on all sides.   As you mow your lawn, you avoid the edges so that you don’t get scraped and scratched as you mow. The blackberries, as you know, will grow faster than you can mow, so with time the patch of green grass becomes smaller and smaller as the blackberries encroach upon your yard.  

The yard surrounded by blackberry bushes is a metaphor for how most people live.  People don’t want to get hurt, so they restrict their lives into a smaller and smaller spaces and limit their potential.  What we all need to realize is that, like the blackberries, life outside the confines of our safe yards is sweet and abundant.  You may get a few scratches, but it is totally worth it.