A lesson in roses

I love flowers. They make me happy with their bright colors and gentleness about them as they start growing. We live in town-house/apartment buildings, the lady that lives right next to us has a GREEN thumb. She has flowers everywhere. Every spring she plants them all over her part of the yard and she has hanging flowers. Her house is beautiful. I've tried a few times to mimic her flower planting skills but my husband and I always seem to put way too many tall flowers in our very small flower box, they never turn out right.

One day my husband was working on a house (his job is salvaging old historic houses and refurbishing them) He's very good at it. He was working on a house that had been empty for a long time and had an almost dead rose bush in the front yard. He asked permission then began digging it up. When he brought it home I was less than pleased but I let him plant it.

This was several years ago, the rose bush came back to life and produced some beautiful roses, my husband has a green thumb and knew just what the rose bush needed. This summer has been hot and humid and down right oppressive. It got hot so quickly, my roses took the full brunt of the heat. I thought the bush had died. I was sad and planned to plant some more roses when ever I could find some time, then one day I opened the blinds to the front window and found this...

Little pink roses with several other buds waiting to open. The rain we've had over the last few weeks brought my roses back to life. I was so excited I wanted to share with you. I believe there's a lesson in these roses..

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation;

the old has gone, the new has come! 2nd Corinthians 5:17.

It doesn't matter who you once were, that part of you is dead. It doesn't matter what you were in the world, you're dead to the world and being made new in Christ every day. It doesn't matter what anyone from your past thinks of you, God sees you as His most prized possessions, His precious child. His opinion is the only one that matters. My roses were dead, God brought them back. God brought me back too, and I'm going to continue telling the story, I'm going to continue shining my light, just like these roses are going to continue to grow and thrive. They just needed water, I just needed the touch of my Father and the Living Water.

That's Grace.