Spear Grass Country

Last year we experienced a long, cold and dry winter. (2016) It has been followed by some useful rain which was the first decent fall since February.  After rain in spring come the grass fires, burning off all the last season’s rubbish and giving way to fresh grass and food for the cattle. Along with the lovely green paddocks comes a particular grass that grows in our area. It is called spear grass.
It is good stock feed while it is fresh but quickly grows rank and at times quite matted on the tops with the seeds for next season which then break off the grass and attach to anything walking through it, whether human or animal.  It is necessary to remove these as soon as possible, and to make sure none a left in your clothing. Cattle often carry these particularly in the tail hair.

When our property was settled in 1868, our early family members tried to introduce sheep to the area but soon found that it was almost impossible to breed them. The spears, from spear grass, an introduced species, would get caught in the sheep’s wool and work their way down to pierce the skin of the sheep. There they inevitably would become infected and at times travel around the sheep’s body causing nasty infection and opening the skin for further blowfly infection. These grass heads, actually shaped like a speak head and very sharp and strong,  are rather nasty and we do need to take care as they enter the human body very easily.  It also has a tail of attached to the head, which is capable of moving the spear head along. When working in the spear grass country, it is wise to wear strong material jeans and long sleeve shirts.

Recently my husband noticed a small red infection on his leg.  Having experienced these infections from spear-grass previously, we immediately believed to be spear grass and as it had not long appeared, we thought we could remove it was sharp tweezers. Not so, and it took some weeks of treating infection and then finally using an old-fashioned poultice to draw the spear-grass towards the surface of the skin. We were then able to remove the spear with a sharp pair of tweezers. Amazingly once spear grass is actually removed the infection heals quite quickly. At times these little spears have been known to travel quite a distance under the skin and invade quite deeply into the muscles where the infection can be painful.

In life, we receive an offence, harsh words, lie, misunderstanding from someone and rather than deal with the issue, we at times allow that word or deed, to go deep within us, and just like the spear-grass, create a wound. We sometimes re-act   out of that source within our hearts (the wound). This wound is like the infection around the spear-grass head, and is the source of what we do and say.  The spear grass wound is like un-forgiveness. We then hurt and wound others all because we chose to live out of our hurt emotions. .  Worse still, we go to the social media and give others “a mouthful of infection”.  Or we ‘act up” against others who may cross our path. Words can be so wounding, and once spoken, it is difficult to take them back.  We need to guard our hearts just as we use protective clothing when working with spear-grass.  If, however, we happen to be wounded, we need to deal with the issue and not allow it to infect our lives and hurts others.  We need to learn to live in forgiveness.

Stephen when he was being stoned to death, not for an offence, he was innocent, did not throw stones back at his attackers but simply and lovingly asked Father to forgive them and what beautiful chain re-action that started!! Paul, then Saul was the recipient of those precious forgiving words and changed his life forever as he then bowed to Jesus. Come and walk with the Master today. Read and be blessed.  Acts 7:54-60; Acts 9:1-20. Matthew 6:14-15; Matthew 18:21-22; 1John1:9; Colossians 3:13.