More Lessons from my Rose Bush: Beauty Beyond and an Insecure Bloom

My rose bush keeps eliciting more lessons each morning. A second bloom has finally opened up. Such beauty. Additionally, there are 2 more buds grown since the last time I counted—that’s a total of 13 buds, a potential for 13 flowers. The color is so rich, so vibrant. A color I can’t seem to recall on any wild rose.

But even still, I can find myself disappointed. Disappointed now, that only two flowers have bloomed. Shouldn’t there be more by now?  When I look across the street and see my neighbor’s rose bushes, I am left feeling a bit insecure of my how my thorny rose looks.  My neighbor’s rose bushes are bursting with hues of red, hundreds of petals from across the way. It’s really a sight to see in a landscape painted in tones of green.

But is this an appropriate response? Only days ago was I elated about finally, after 5 laborious years, having any buds at all, let alone flowers!  How could I go from delighted to discouraged in a matter of minutes?

There is nothing inherently better about the roses across the street. Both are roses. Both are bushes doing what they are intended to do. Both are beautiful. Both have a pleasing aroma. Both are producing.

Yet one more than the other, but this shouldn’t surprise me. My neighbor’s roses are pruned seasonally, get more sun, and do not exist as a solo bush. The roses across the street have the companionship of other bushes planted near by for climbing support. So of course they have more roses!

And so in the Christian life, once we have seen the fruit in our faith, we start to compare our progress, our disciplines, our time, our fruit, our faith with our neighbor’s. How often are we left feeling insecure because the quantity of our fruit doesn't match others? We know this isn’t right—insecurity is simply a forgotten identity and distrust in the Master Gardener who causes all growth.

The truth is that my rose has two flowers, and many more to blossom. That’s more beauty to behold than we have ever seen in this yard. That’s a cause for celebration. My rose bush must produce 1 blossom before it can produce 100.

So hear this sisters...

We can look at the Rose Bush across the street, with contentment—we have roses!, and with encouragement to grow more in discipline, to continue pruning what doesn’t produce, to fertilize with the truth of God’s word, and to look more fully into the warmth of the Son. We can gaze and appreciate other's beauty without diminishing the loveliness in what God has done in our thorny, rose bush of hearts.

So gaze on. Look at the Roses beyond, and in a way, we can see what we are supposed to look like, what the Gardener will produce in the days to come. 

Encouragement from a Flowerless Rose Bush

We’ve lived here five years. When we bought our house, we inherited a bristly rose bush, along with the rest of a dismissed yard. This is the rose bush. We knew it was a rose bush, just look at the leaves, feel the thorns. But for five years we have watched this bush longingly: each year we've been left confused, disappointed, let down. We were sure it was a rose bush. But we had never seen a bud, let alone hope of a flower. We have never beheld the true beauty rose bushes here.

Two years ago I chopped it down nearly to it’s based. Frustrated. I cut away everything that wasn’t producing. Tossed the clippings in the woods. Again, nothing. Last year, I did the same—instead determined to uproot the whole thing and render it a worthless plant, but I stopped short. I still desperately wanted to see the rose. What color would its flowers be!?  The desire, anticipation to see fruit willed me on.  So I pruned the limbs, added some compost to the base of bush, and I left those root in the ground.

And we waited. All winter we waited. Five years now.

But clearly there was growth where I couldn’t see happening below the surface. A rose bush encouraged to do what rose bushes do.

So imagine my bewilderment when this spring, we didn’t count one bud—but eleven. Eleven glorious buds. With red now peaking through. Red!

What if I had given up?

What if I had neglected it?

What if I hadn’t fed it good food?

What if I had dug it up to be forgotten?

What a beautiful sight we would have missed altogether. A rose bush, producing a rose. Like it was intended to do. We would have let something able to produce, die. What a tragedy, a lack of color, a lack of sweet aroma our detailed yard would be without.

Hear this, my sisters.

Oh that we may care so greatly for one another in the church that we tenderly, even with pain in our eyes, trim away the dead, lifeless parts to encourage growth. May we care so deeply for each other that we give each other the rich food of God’s word. May we care so compassionately for one another that we do not cast off and give up on one another, even after five years. May we, day after day and season after season, check to see where buds are forming, patiently waiting the end result of a beautiful rose. May we celebrate the buds and the blooms we see flourishing around us.

May we emulate our Master Gardener by yes, scattering seed and faithfully watering, but also resolving to not neglect the good work of pruning and fertilizing the bushes that already exist.

Oh may we each put forth eleven roses this year after years of pruning the fruitless.