The Broken Rose

The heavy rains lately have been very hard on our roses. The Knock-Out roses had done just that, knocking themselves out, so to speak, with their extravagant blooms.  We knew they were getting over loaded and planned to trim them back later on. But we were shocked after torrential rains to see the bushes bent to the ground the other morning!

"Can we tie them up, or something?" I implored my husband.  I remembered a pack of heavy brown twine that was left over from some rustic-themed Christmas wrappings I had bought. It worked!  Tied to the branches that had drooped, and pulled taut to an iron bracket on the house, the bush was restored to its former glory!  The twine was invisible from a distance, even though it was criss-crossed plentifully throughout the bush.

It reminded me of the scripture in Isaiah telling us, "A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench," Isaiah 42:3. This is part of a  prophecy of the Messiah, who is called "my servant," in verse 1.  Bruised reed can also mean bent reed, like my rose branches.  Jesus does not give up on people easily, but instead wants to mend broken lives.  No matter how desperate the circumstances , there is usually some small glimmer of hope hiding somewhere, and Jesus will not extinguish it. Like a smoldering coal covered with ash, the breath of the Holy Spirit can breath new life into the situation.

In our women's group at church, we have been looking into the lives of notable women in the Bible. We read about Hannah, Samuel's mother, who would not give up the hope of having a child, even promising to turn him over to the Lord if her prayers were answered.  During a time of  much agonizing and weeping in prayer, the priest Eli, overheard, and at first thinking her to be drunk, told Hannah to go in peace, that her desire would be  granted. She rejoiced and saw the fulfillment of her hope.

Another strong woman of the Bible was Leah, the unintended wife of Jacob.  She wanted desperately for him to love her, but he loved Rachel, whom he also married.  In Leah's obsession to bear many sons to gain his love, she was always disappointed.  But God remembered her, and it was her son, Judah, not Rachel's son, who was in the lineage of Jesus Christ.

Often times our spirits are bruised.  We long for distant loved ones, or have other desires that seem hopeless and never to be fulfilled. "Hope deferred maketh the heart sick: But when the desire cometh, it is a tree of life," Proverbs 13:12.    A famous work by Johann Sebastian Bach, Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring  says it all. When our desire is for Him, it is a tree of life!