I love fresh flowers and springtime is my favorite season. The multicolored blooms around every corner remind me of the beauty that comes from a cold and desolate season.  Despite my love of all blooming creation, I’ve never been a fan of receiving flowers, especially roses for special events. #1- they are a quick and easy cop-out for my husband, requiring little effort but a few clicks on a computer. #2- they die fairly quickly and considering their expense, I would rather have a new pair of shoes.

Roses are a particular flower that can stir some deep philosophical meaning for some… beauty among thorns, exquisite yet painful, and so on and so forth. My grandfather planted some rose bushes beside their house and I always loved picking those roses for my mom and grandmother but I HATED being pricked by those things! By way of my profession as a pelvic floor physical therapist, the rose is also used in bio-feedback imagry for the pelvic floor. Needless to say, I have a bit of a dichotomous relationship with the rose. How clever and ironic it is that God chose this flower to “give” me the ultimate gift in my testimony of our relationship!

Before I get into the story of the rose, I feel the need to set the backstage a bit. Back in 2012, Joseph had been on a journey of healing and restoration and his spiritual blinders were being removed. I know all this sounds great and glorious, but to be honest, it was a terribly hard season for me and for our marriage. I was not adjusting well to his newly found spiritual standing because for the first decade of our marriage, I was trying to pull spiritual leadership out of him like pulling teeth from an alligator (like it was my job to do that in the first place). I had not necessarily been content leading our family spiritually, but I’m a leader; I can do it and he wouldn’t, so I just jumped in to take care of business.  Now here is this man (a different man in so many ways) who is trying to talk to me about my healing and restoration…trying to pull something out of me… “Excuse me? Who are you again and what right do you have to ask this of me?” 

In this tumultuous time, Joseph took a major risk…he signed me up for a women’s “Captivating Retreat” with Ransomed Heart Ministries out in Colorado. I really didn’t want to go. I didn’t care for missing work for a couple days and didn’t want to go without a friend…alone…by myself…with no one…I’m social…I need to talk to people… But I went, reluctantly and without expectation. Joseph had set the bar really high because he had an amazing healing experience with God during his Colorado event. I had never felt “worthy enough” or “good enough” to attain that level of closeness with God.  At that time, I saw close relationship and experience with God for “other people,” “people who are really holy,” and that was NOT me!

I attended the retreat and I made friends! The first couple of days I heard story after story of breakthrough and God doing amazing things in the hearts of the women around me. I was doing the same things they were doing…praying, journaling, reading the Word and was hearing nothing from God. I was jealous. In my mind my thoughts were solidified…those types of encounters with God were for someone else…someone else better than me. On the last day of the retreat, all of that changed…

On Saturday at the retreat, we were in a session, engaging in a guided prayer time. The leader of the session was taking us through a mindfulness prayer exercise.  She would say something to guide our thoughts and our mind to engage God in spirit during the prayer and picture wherever God wanted our thoughts to go. The ultimate purpose of the exercise was to give the Holy Spirit the opportunity to show us all how God truly felt about us, how He delights in each of us, cares for us deeply on a personal and intimate level. It went something like this:

“Picture Jesus meeting you in a beautiful place. It is a room that has been decorated just for you. He gives you a gift and you open it…what do you see?”

My gift was a red-pink rose…of ALL THINGS?!?! What!?! Why on earth would God put that in my mind as my gift? Here is a “gift” that is beautiful but painful, not really a “splurge” for God, but something I have seen as a cop-out; not to mention a rose is something that dies quickly, leaving you with nothing. I was less than thrilled, needless to say. I could not even listen to the other ladies talk about the “gifts they had received” during this prayer session. I knew in my heart, whatever it was they received, it was better than a rose. I felt more lonely and sad that day than I had felt in a long, long time.

Finally, during the last session on the last day, we were engaging in a “soaking worship” and prayer time. We were all quietly listening to worship music and praying, asking God the questions on our heart. In my disappointment, I didn’t really want to engage. I was so upset and angry that I just cried, asking God, “What do you really think of me? Is this it? A rose? Is this it?” And then immediately in response, I heard the song…the song that was for me; Jesus was speaking directly to me, specific to my gift, the rose. Here are some of the lyrics.

I'm more than what these ashes say
They will fade away when He comes for me
By grace, through faith in Christ I'm saved
I am not the same when He looks at me

I am the rose, the joy for which You died
And this I know, I move You with delight
And when my heart condemns on every side
I take refuge in the truth: I am the rose to You

My life is more than meets the eye
I'm hidden now in Christ and I'm one with Him
My love is real before His eyes
He's ravished by the sight of one glance from me

I am the rose, the joy for which You died
And this I know, I move You with delight
And when my heart condemns on every side
I take refuge in the truth: I am the rose to You

I am the rose, I am the lily
I am Yours, I'm Your beauty

God spoke directly to me…He actually answered my question that I so longed to know…what do you really think of me?

“I am the rose, the joy for which You died

And this I know, I move You with delight

I am Yours, I'm Your beauty”

The way He answered me was so beautiful and tender to my heart. This was one of those tangible moments with God… the kind where there is no way coincidentally that this could happen. 

After the retreat was over, I called Joseph to tell him, “I get it now.” I finally understood what he wanted for me and from me. He wanted me to have the gift of restoration, relationship and experience with God as well. How precious is that?

Another cool tangible from this experience occurred for Joseph. After I told him about my Rose and the experience with God, the song, Joseph began to sob. While I was gone, he had been praying for me, asking God to tear down my walls and heal my heart. God gave him a mental picture, a vision, of a desolate land, city walls tumbled to the ground, and in the middle of this gray and black desolation was standing a single red-pink rose. This vision in prayer happened for him on the first day I was at the retreat. Joseph and I had not spoken since I arrived at the event, so there was no way either of us could have known about the rose. The connection of the Holy Spirit is so amazing! What a tangible experience for both of us! 

This time with God changed me and changed how I approach and encounter Him and invited me into the process which leads to restoration.  My song continually reminds me that God seeks my heart tenderly and is ravished by the sight of one glance from me. He does not wait for me to be good enough or to be without sin to love me and delight in me. And now, I’ll never look at God or a rose the same way again.

Here is a link to the song. Check it out! It’s called “More than Ashes” by Tim Reimherr.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHt7wdPGOTc

I hope it blesses you the way it has blessed me.

With love and hope, be revealed.

Lori

I am now captivated by roses every time I come across them. Here's a picture of the rose garden at the Claytor Nature Center near Bedford, Virginia with the Peaks of Otter in the background. 

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