Paterson's Curse

Paterson's Curse

My husband, Michael and I  used to live on an Australian sheep and cattle property in the Southern Highlands in the state of N.SW. Here we raised our precious, now adult, daughters. Michael had grown up in New Zealand by the beach and I grown up by the Australian bush. My husband had studied a farm technology course so he knew a bit about farming. Michael was actually working in the area of landscaping and not farming and he was managing a twenty acre garden around the main homestead on the sheep and cattle property . We also lived on the property, which was two thousand and five hundred acres of dry,grassy paddocks. It ran Cross Bred and Merino sheep as well as Charolais and Angus cattle. As a working farm, there were many well fenced off paddocks and the cattle manager would work to move cattle or sheep around between the different paddocks.

One thing I noticed about the usually dry paddocks was the presence of a beautiful purple flower. It was delicate. I could drive around the property or even view neigbouring properties and see the presence of this lovely flower. Sometimes entire paddocks would be full of the flowers and they presented a gorgeous field of a sea of purple.

There was, however, one thing Michael knew about those purple flowers that I did not know.  They had a name. They were called Pateron’s Curse. How could something so lovely and so delicate be called a curse?

Pateron’s curse was introduced into Australia from the mediterranean region many years ago. It is actually a weed. It can produce 10,000 seeds during the spring and those seeds can lie dormant over the summer and then as soon as the rains come they germinate by their thousands. Paterson's Curse literally takes over a paddock and there is little grass left for the cattle and sheep. However, it is worse than that. Besides being a dominate weed, if eaten, they destroy the liver of  sheep, they reduce the animal's weight gain and can affect the wool clip and can lead to death. Farmer’s control it chemically but there are currently 6 different weevils and beetles that have been released into Australia to  control and kill off Paterson’s curse. 

So here is something so beautiful yet apparently so harmful.

In the Bible our hearts are compared to the earth and what our hearts produce is compared to either herbs or thorns/briers. In  other words the Bible says our hearts either produce fruit or weeds. 

Heb 6: 7,8 For the earth which drinks in the rain that often comes upon it, and bears herbs useful for those by whom it is cultivated, receives blessing from God;  but if it bears thorns and briers, it is rejected and near to being cursed, whose end is to be burned.

I am challenged by a thought. Is my heart and life producing  beautiful flowers like Paterson's Curse, an appearance of loveliness but really a curse to myself and to others? Is my heart and life producing fruit, a blessing to myself and to others?

 Gal 5:22,23 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.