Bare Roots

Okay so these aren't the prettiest pictures that you've ever seen, but they give us food for thought. In the winter we cut rose bushes down to the bare root. We would never think of not pruning them. It is a necessity - if we want beautiful roses in the spring/summer. As we look at this unattractive, bare rose bush, we have in our brain-bank what it should look like and what it has looked like. We know that the Roses are big, pink and full of fragrance. We know that the leaves are a beautiful green and we can almost picture the rose bush in all its fullness. But what if we didn't have this foreknowledge. Would we wait in expectation to the fullness to come or would we yank it out and throw it away? As this bare bush sits in my yard, I don't sit by it and partake of its fragrance. No one goes by it and cuts some of its beautiful root, no, it sits alone in the cold, damp weather with no beauty emanating from it.

And so the contrast. Seasons, seasons, seasons. Each and everyone is so needed. How bare and how lonely and how unattractive we feel when Our Heavenly Father has pruned us to the bare root. How cold, how alone. You see, in these times of winter we don't fall back on what WE KNOW (that God is at work, that God is in control, that God will bring beauty from ashes, that God is making a beautiful creation out of me), we fall on what we "see"-bare roots; on how we "feel"-cold, damp, and lonely. We can't even think past winter into spring/summer. Winter is so cold and cruel.

But hey, guess what, after winter ALWAYS comes spring/summer! When our fragrance will be that of Christ to others, when our "fruit/flowers" will be used to bless others, to bring joy to others. A time when others will sit by/next to us and be blessed by the beauty of the Lord in us.

So let us keep singing, let us keep praising His name - when we are faithless, He remains faithful. You are my hiding place; You preserve me from trouble; You surround me with songs of deliverance. Psalm 32:7

Bare roots will become beautiful roses! He makes everything beautiful in His time. Praise be to Our Wonderful Creator!