Encourager: The Rose Within Us All (Jan.)

The Rose Within Us All
An old woman in the winter of her life, decided to plant a rose bush. She pampered it, watered it faithfully and when it was almost time for it to blossom, she examined it carefully.To her amazement and disappointment, she noticed thorns upon the stems and thought to herself, “How can such a beautiful flower come from a plant burdened with so many sharp thorns? Saddened by this thought, the old woman stopped watering the rose bush and just about the time it should have started to bloom, it died. So it is with many people. Within every single soul there is a beautiful rose. The God-like qualities that are planted in all of us at birth, grow amid the thorns of our faults and failures.Many of us look at the ‘rose bushes’ around us and see only the thorns, the defects. We despair, thinking that nothing good can possibly come from a rose bush with so many thorns. So we neglect the rose bush, we talk about all the thorns it has, and we don’t treat it with the love and kindness that it needs to thrive and grow in strength and beauty.And in doing so, we not only let God down, who created all the rose bushes, but we keep that one rose bush from realizing it’s own potential. One of the greatest traits a person can possess is to be able to reach past the thorns of a person and find the rose within. After all, this is one of the characteristics of love, to be able to look at a person, look past their faults and love them unconditionally, just as Jesus loves us. What is that old saying…when you point your finger at someone else…if you’ll look closely…you’ll see 3 fingers pointing right back at YOU! And if we want to strive to be more like Jesus…and shouldn’t we all…that old gospel song says,‘He looked beyond “my faults”…and saw “my need”.” Don’t kid yourself into thinking you’re the only pearl in a sea of rough pebbles. No matter who you are, where you live, or what you do. No matter how good you are…or how giving…or how loving, there is something about ‘you’ that irritates the daylights out of ‘someone’. It’s just a fact of life!We “ALL” have faults…little things about us that drive others right up the wall. So let’s learn to look beyond those faults…and see the needs of those around us. Let's all become better gardeners in the gardens of our lives. There is no rose bush known to man that doesn’t have the potential for growing beautiful roses.