Every Rose has its Thorn

I’m a pretty patient person when it comes to showing patience to others, but I’m not very good at being patient with myself. I’m especially bad at being patient with my health. I’ve been ready to be healthy for many years. I’ve been fighting for it with everything I know how, for over a decade. God has to keep working on my heart to just take it one day at a time, trust Him, and enjoy the blessings I have in the present.

I do think healing will come for me one day. But I don’t want to be so focused on healing that I miss out on all I have in my life right now. That’s true for a lot of seasons I’ve been through. Sometimes there have been other obstacles in my life I was trying so hard to get passed, that I missed out on much of the beauty I had in that season.

Patience isn’t always easy, but I think it’s a needed fruit for any of us to live at peace. It helps us stop and smell the roses around us instead of just trying to remove the thorns. By the time many of us have removed the thorns- the rose petals have died, and we are on to removing the thorns of the next rose in our life. We’ve missed out on the sweet smell of those petals around us.

I was recently writing somebody about our Colorado spring weather. It had snowed one day and 2 days later it was sunny, clear skies, 70° out, and my mom and I had the AC on in our car. The snow had melted off the roads, yet you could still see it scattered in areas on the ground. The sky was blue and beautiful. The sun was blazing down so intense that we needed the AC. But it is humorous to have snow and AC simultaneously.

It made me think, metaphorically, of how life is. I think each season of life has its sunshine and snow. It’s good and it’s bad. I don’t want to look back at the “good seasons” of my life and think that there were no hardships during that time. And I don’t want to look back at the “turbulous seasons” of my life and not remember the beauty God had in them.

When I was thriving at work and college I was often stressed out of my mind and never felt like I had enough time for the important things like family and friendships. I had heartbreaks over the interpersonal relationships I did have in my life. So, my life may have looked good on the surface, and I did greatly enjoy those seasons, but they had their challenges.

On the other hand, the most difficult seasons of my life, when I was completely broken and felt my life was falling apart; whether that was the persecution my family went through as a missionary family in India, my health battles, or numerous other things, it brought me to a place where I knew God in a deeper way. He became my everything, the only thing I could count on. He grew me, changed me, molded me and I’m so grateful for that. Only God could bring beauty from such pain.

One of the beautiful things I can think of, off the top of my head, is my relationship with my nieces and nephews that has become quite sweet from my health situation. I was afraid that because of how limited I was I wouldn’t be able to be close to them. I couldn’t spend long amounts of time with them, I often was trapped in a dark room, I couldn’t drive or take them out to ice cream or do the things I would do if I were healthy.

But this meant when they came to visit their sick aunty who was stuck in bed, I gave them my undivided attention. We play imaginary games together, we make up stories together, they bring all their new toys to me and excitedly explain how each of them works. They also know I will watch their “kid shows” with them because I’m trapped in bed lol. And so, I watch a lot of animated movies with them.

With a few of them, I could tell they were afraid of the oxygen tube, so I had them name “her” and then I had her “talk” to them. I would hold part of it up as if it were a puppet and use a different voice than mine. This got them laughing so hard. Before I knew it, they would excitedly run in my room and be more excited to greet the oxygen tube and have her “talk to them” than greet me lol. One of my nieces told me that she wants to be like me when she grows up and live with her parents. That made me laugh pretty hard!!

My health did change my relationship with them. But I found a way to still have a good relationship with them. And they are my rose petals when I feel so sick I can barely get out of bed. When I actually have “better days” physically and at family events spend time with the whole family in the living room instead of in my bed, the nieces and nephews are really bummed because they don’t get that same one-on-one time with me.

I know all of us are going through different trials. I don’t know what your hardships or hurdles are but I know most of you that read this are going through something. I just want to encourage you to stop and smell the roses in your life instead of just bleeding from the thorns. I don’t know what that looks like for you. But my prayer as I write this is God helps you find those things.

I love you guys. So many of you have been such beautiful rose petals in my life and I am incredibly grateful for that. Thank you for all of you who’ve reached out to me through the years.

Job 2:10 “‘Should we take only good things from God and not trouble?’ In spite of all this Job did not sin in what he said.”