The Hard Good Care

The scissors.  The cutting.  The snippings.

The instructions given to me by the keeper of the greenhouse were to trim these flowers a-way back.  She said these words,  "It's good for them.  They will bush out."  It causes them to become full instead of straggly and leggy.  Oh those good blooms...

Blooms gone.  Cut back, bare.  

The instruction for these flowers were to give a discreet snipping.  Snip here, snip there; giving them a rounded look.  Cut away this long one, cut this wayward vine...

Yes, the snipping I gave this flower produces a flower pleasing to the buyer's eye.  It wasn't time for them to grow uninhibited and live full.  The pruning, the snipping was for the good of a later time of living full.

The instruction for these plants were to stake them, giving them a framework that holds them for the season of fruit-producing.  Support.

The care of plants is varied.  The care for we humans, is also varied.  God, the Master Gardener sometimes cuts way back, other times it's a snip and a snip there, and other times we need the support of another and the care of help.

Sometimes we want to bloom full and free but it's not time says the Gardener.  There are more things to learn, to understand ...

The scissors, the snippings, the cuttings are not fun or pleasurable in my life, but they produce a fruit and understanding more who of God is than if I could bloom in ways that I want to.

Blooms gone.  (Seemingly wasted... they are so pretty....)

Cut back. (But I wanted to bloom free)

The Master Gardener knows what it takes for the good blooms and fruit to be healthy.  And sometimes it's not the unhealthy He cuts, it's the healthy and good blooms.  The blooming you and I do is for His glory, not ours.  It's so easy to bloom for what benefits me, but it is not for me, it is for Him and He knows where to cut, what to snip and when support is needed.

I thank Him for His goodness, for His everlasting wisdom that is good, gentle, and kind.  Jeremiah 29:11 says, "For I know the plans that I have for you, " declares the Lord, "plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope."

As oft it may seem that God is against me as I wrestle and walk through hard; He isn't.  He wants me to bloom and live with a future and with hope.  And so it is for you...

With whatever you are walking through... hard or joyous, may you know God is for you and not against you.