Last Rose of the Season

Last Thursday as I was walking from my father-in-law's house (where I park for WC home football games) to the stadium a thought occurred to me, "It must be fall now, because that tree is bright orange." Yeah, I'm a little slow at times. Over the weekend I started to notice that a lot of trees in the area have started their color change cycle.

This morning I noticed a single new rose bloom on our rose bush outside our front door. There is one additional bud and one shoot that looks like it could produce a bud if it doesn't freeze first. However, with local weather calling for a "hard" freeze tonight and/or tomorrow night the odds of either of these latter two getting to open before the weather gets them is slim.

The single open bloom is likely the last for this year. While I'm no gardener to speak of - and like Eric Epperson I do not own a combine - I do enjoy watching this rose bush - which is as tall as the guttering on my house (literally) - bloom each year.

The bush serves as a good visual depiction of the birth, growth, maturity, decline, and death cycle that all living things go through (I'm also not a biologist, so if those aren't the right terms or I left one out please consider the source). But here is what I really like about the rose bush. I'm going to cut it way back this winter (down to the stalks that are so thick my cutters won't cut them) and in the spring - barring something unexpected - it's going to come out blooming again.

The yearly cycle of my rose bush is a little like our spiritual lives in the sense that most of us go through times when we our growth as Christians can be plainly seen (as with the blooms on the bush) and others when we may look/feel dead or like our work is fruitless (as the bush is in early spring when just green, thorny stalks begin to grow). But here is what I've noticed about this rose bush, which I think is about 5 years old now (based on when the house was built), regardless of what it looks like at particular times of the year, each year it produces more blooms. We had 2 different times this year when there were 30+ blooms and/or buds at one time on it. As the bush matures it still goes through the same cycle it did before, but each time it emerges it is stronger and produces more fruit.

It can be frustrating as a Christian to be going through a time in life where you don't see yourself growing, I've certainly felt that. But I believe that if we are continuing to seek Christ, when (in His timing) we emerge from that period of our life we will do so stronger and more effective for His Kingdom.

This is something I've noticed some of our interns going through during the summer. They come to Joplin expecting to spend the summer on a spiritual high - no doubt because they've been to Move as a student and/or sponsor and that is what it was to them in those capacities - but find themselves focusing on details that may not be initially leading to the spiritual fulfillment they had hoped for. But time and again, I get emails or hear about others who have talked to different interns who felt that way and they have a much different perspective a few months after the fact. In some cases interns who we as a staff thought would never re-apply do. What seems to be happening is that they are growing, but don't see it until the fruit of that growth starts to appear later.

So while we are headed for winter, spring will be here soon enough. If you are walking through a winter-like period in your spiritual journey take heart, the day will come when you'll be able to see growth and maturity and the fruit that comes along with them.