Previous Challenge Entry (Level 2 – Intermediate)
Topic: Tie (02/28/13)
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TITLE: Roses on the Trellis | Previous Challenge Entry
By Shanta Richard
03/06/13 -
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It would bring back memories of the old gardener who would tend to those roses so gently and lovingly. He would use green plant- ties to fasten the creepers to the trellis. As a child I was resentful that he had to tie them. Then one day the rains came. One branch tore free from the tie. The wind tossed it around and eventually the branch snapped and hung limp and broken. The next day the gardener came and bandaged the broken branch and tied securely to the trellis. Days later I saw little shoots sprouting from the broken branch. This was one of the early lessons I learned in life about the need discipline.
In later years in whenever I resented God disciplines I remembered the rose covered trellis and the green plant-ties. In my imagination I would put myself in the place of the rose creeper and the trellis as God’s plan for my life. The green plant-ties would be God’s guiding spirit keeping me from wandering away from His purpose for my life.
This was really a hard discipline because the arrogant “I” in me often tries to pull me away from God’s plan. And then God has to “cross” it down. The trellis is made up of many tiny crosses and my life has many “I”s crossed out – many tiny crosses. In time these little crosses lead me to that old rugged cross where my blessed Lord Jesus bled and died for all my arrogance and rebellion. And now pardoned, reconciled and renewed at His cross, every one of those roses on that trellis becomes a symbol of victory. The green plant- ties are God’s loving embraces keeping me within grace of His trellis.
William Wordsworth found the “bliss of solitude” in his vision of the daffodils. I have found the joy of a victorious life in being tied into God’s will through my vision of the roses on the trellis.
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