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A few summers ago, my husband and I bought two rose bushes for our front flowerbed. I specifically bought rose bushes because I needed some strong bushes to withstand the afternoon conditions of our front yard. My husband planted the first rose bush. We then got side tracked and didn’t plant the second rose bush until that evening when my mother-in-law was over. My husband’s mother has much more of a green thumb than we do, so I was glad she was there to help with the second one.
Every day from that point on, we got our watering bucket with Miracle Grow in it and watered those bushes! Every day we watered both the same. That’s why it was so odd a week later when the first one we planted was thriving and the second one seemed to be turning brown. By the second week, the first one had pretty little roses blossoming on it, but the second one was even more brown with no hint of roses!
I told my husband that I thought we should take it back to the store we got it from. We must have just gotten a bad one, I told him. He wanted to give it more time, but I thought that would be a waste of time. I said, "Let’s just dig it up and get a good one so that we can have two pretty rose bushes out front." My husband kept watering that pathetic dead looking bush over the next week or two. I quit even looking at it, and never thought much about it when I pulled into our garage each day.
One day I pulled up to the house and happened to look over at the bushes. To my utmost surprise, the dead bush was now greener and had more beautiful rose buds on it than the first one! I excitedly told my husband, “Oh my goodness! Look at the bush! Can you believe it?!” He just laughed at me and told me he was waiting for me to notice.
I can’t help but think that we have people like that second rose bush in our lives. People that we look at and see no hope for. People that we look at and see all the dead ends in their life. People we look at and think we just must have gotten a bad one.
Somehow, I think God is like my husband though. I think He says to just give it more time. He continues to water them with His goodness and whispers His beckons for them to come grow with Him. Someone that we would trash, He is faithful to. And one day, when we are least expecting it, that dead life becomes the beautiful rose bush we never thought we would see it become.
It’s not just how we start, but it can be how we finish that makes all the difference in the world. There were times I know people could look at my life and think: What a waste. People could look at me and think could anything possibly good come from her? But I didn’t stay withered. I knelt before the Lord and let him prune me and nurture me and I stand here today not with beautiful flowers of my own but holding the blossoms of His mercy and grace on my life.
Don’t give up on the people around you. God’s not. They may look withered and broken, but there is always hope. There is always a way for them to become all that was hoped for them from the beginning. No one is ever too far gone. God can restore, replenish, and make them flourish in a way that can take you totally by surprise.
2 Timothy 2:13
If we are unfaithful, He remains faithful…
Father God, thank You so much for never losing faith in me. Even when I have not been faithful to You, You are still there for me. You have hope for me and I know that I can be beautiful in You. Thank You for tenderly caring for me and loving me even when so many people around me have given up hope. Please help me never to look at someone else as a hopeless cause. There is always a better future possible and I believe it is possible with You.