The Perfect Rose

 Image by Marla Shaw O’Neill

(The Perfect Rose is written by my Aunt Rose. She writes beautiful poetry and stories that I’ve come to love and treasure over the years and I want to honor her and share them with you. I will be sharing, “Writings by Aunt Rose,”  frequently and I hope you will be as blessed as I have been. Aunt Rose is an octogenarian.  She has a beautiful heart and loves to share Jesus with others. She doesn’t use the computer, so all of her writings are sent to me hand-written which makes them even more precious. I hope  you will come to love and admire her as well.)

I would like to tell you about the power of God shown to me through a beautiful, long-stemmed rose. When I first received the rose it was vibrant and beautiful. It stood straight and tall in its glory.

The beauty of the blossom represents the beauty of a new born believer, who has just come to Christ. It’s beauty declares, “Look at me, I’m a new creature in Christ, the old is gone, I’ve been made new!” It’s a wonderful reminder of the joy of the in-dwelling of the Holy Spirit when God first drew us to Him.

The stature of the rose, reminds us that it’s only through God’s strength that we may stand straight and proud and know who we are in Christ. It is Christs’ righteousness that enables us to stand tall and beautiful. We cannot do this within ourselves.

I put the rose in a vase of water and set it on the table to be admired. I enjoyed its beauty for a few days, and then I noticed a change.

The water the rose was in, represented the Holy Spirit. The beautiful rose had not taken advantage of all of God’s benefits. The bloom was fading and losing its strength. A day or two passed and the bloom began to wilt and droop. The wilting and bowing of the bloom represents the new Christian who is weighted down by trials and circumstances of life that come to us all.

As I looked at the rose, I wondered what I could do to revive it. This is the attitude we should all have toward one another. We should ask God to use us to minister and encourage. We should approach each other with love and tenderness, not with condemnation.

With gentleness and love I took the once beautiful rose and laid it on my counter top to survey the problem. In God’s Word there are solutions to specific problems. Jesus Christ is the solution.

First, I noticed the tip of the stem was black. This represents the sin that we let creep back into our life~ God still loves us through our failures. The sin separates us from the “Living Water.” This Living Water needs to be soaked up into our very being in order for us to have that personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Otherwise we would only have “religion.”

I cut the tip-off, representing the pruning of the bushes and trees in order for new growth and the multiplication of *good fruit. God periodically prunes the dead branches from us so that we may grow stronger and bear better fruit. The dead branches represent the root and decay that stunts our growth in Him; decay also represents sin.

I put fresh water in the vases which represented the refilling of the Holy Spirit. We may be renewed and refilled as often as necessary, Jesus said, “Once you receive this water I give to you, you will never thirst again.” Next, I added two aspirin which represents the nourishment from God’s Word which we need daily in order to grow into more productive Christians. Jesus stood on His father’s Word against Satan and so should we. We need the “Bread of life.”

I did all I could for the blossom, now God would give the increase.

*Galatians 5:22, 23, 25 ~ but the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace longsuffering, gentleness, goodness faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.

I set the rose on the window sill to draw strength from the sun and away from any disturbance. This represents us placing ourselves away from any distractions that prevent us from being in His presence. We must give God our undivided attention to be able to hear what he wants to tell us.

As each day passed, a miracle was taking place. The flower was receiving warm and tender mercies from the sun and began to lift its head. This represents the new and tender mercies we may receive from the S-O-N, daily, no matter what our failures are or mistakes we make, He is there to lift us up to higher ground because He loves us.

The bloom was able to raise its head and be proud of how it was in the beginning; realizing God is the source of life. This represents God’s love for us. No matter how low we’ve become, through Him, we may be revived. We may become strong like the mighty oak, rooted in God’s Word.

Once again the rose can become like the perfect rose God planned it to be~

~Rose Gandy March 22, 1998