Rotten in the Core.

Just after we returned from South Africa 5 years back, and moved in with our Children, I bought some Cacti for my wife. I’m not overly fond of them but she is, and as most of them were reasonably cheap, I bought a few. However I bought a few to many. So much so that I decided that they had to go outside into the garden and decided on a certain spot beside the carport for them. One particular cactus was about 18inches when bought, but after going in the garden, grew to almost 6 feet.

About 12 months ago my son discovered that the house needed restumping and the Stumpers decided that they needed to access the underside of the house where the cacti were. So as I was thinking of shifting them elsewhere anyhow, we dug them all up and moved most of them to another spot.

The 6ft one however was magnificent and so we put it in a big pot and moved it around the back. Unfortunately it didn’t accept the shift and died at its root. The rest was still green but absolutely dead at the roots.

During our recent move to the new place I took the rest of the cacti with me and today I cut it up hoping that maybe I could salvage some of it and maybe get some new plants from it. I cut it away from the base about 18 inches above the dead bit, only to find that even that high up it was rotten and dead in the core. I had to cut about another foot off, to find a place where it was not dieing. Whether I can save any of it, or have left it too late to save any, I am not sure, but I will try.

The thing is that although it was dead at the roots and dieing inside, it was still green and healthy looking on the outside. Why? Because it was feeding on and off itself. Yes it looked alive at the top, but it was eating away at itself in side.

What about us? Are we not sometimes like this cactus? Looking good up top from a distance, but up close, we are dead at the roots and dying inside. Do we not too at times allow things to eat away inside us, inwardly dying whilst putting up a show on the outside?

Sometimes the only way to save ourselves is to cut away the dead and dying and start again. This will usually not be easy, often painful, and not always successful, but often it is all we can do.

Which is why if we find that happening to ourselves, we have to act immediately to try and resolve the problem before it does become too late and fatal. Again, prevention is far better than trying to cure! What say you? Walter