Maybe this one is just for me …. <3

Yesterday Russ and I switched into grubs as soon as we got home from church and headed out to work in the yard before it got too hot. 

We were late to the party on that one. It was already beastly but we were determined and a lot of what needed weeding and washing we could do in the shade so we stuck it out. 

One of my tasks was to trim back the roses that have bloomed and died. 

These rose bushes have nine-hundred lives. I think every year we will lose them, and they bounce back. Hence the name…Knock-out. 

They are beautiful and thanks to a horticulturist friend we learned some things to combat the diseased stems and holey leaves and they are thriving. Especially if I lop off all the bloomed out stems throughout the summer. 

But these roses do not give up their own without a cost. Often when I am working on them I will end up with lacerations on my arms and legs from the gnarly thorns. 

I wear long gloves and move gingerly and yesterday, I did come out unscathed. 

My goal is to nip and flip and hope they reach the basket I collect them in to carry to the waste bin. 

As you can see, I am not super effective at this. 

Thus I must pick up these dangerous stems by hand. 

Yesterday I discovered (even though it is not my first rodeo with this pruning process) that if I grasp the stem on the flower end, there are no thorns. 

This eureka moment made the whole process less painful as I had nary a  thorn penetrate my glove. 

But as I worked, I felt the Holy Spirit whisper there is a lesson there. 

I paused as I plucked another severed limb up by the small red petals that remained. 

The pretty part of the pruning was what I grasped as I dropped them one by one into the basket. 

Pruning is not weeding. 

Weeds are things that do not belong. 

Pruning removes things that are no longer needed. 

God prunes us and it hurts. 

We prune out things that no longer serve the season we are in and it stings. 

Maybe, just maybe, I have been looking at it wrong. 

Maybe instead of feeling the pain of the thorn as things are removed from my life and heart, I should grasp the beauty of what was born of those things and embrace that as I let go of it. 

Something to think about today <3