This afternoon I finally got around to some much needed weeding on the front and side of the house. As I walked around the corner I saw a mess of weeds around a very small rosebush.
This rosebush is my nemesis. I’ve never really cared for rosebushes. They are beautiful at first, but then the aphids get them. The leaves become damaged and they don’t look so pretty. They need maintenance- the flowers need to be pruned to look beautiful. And they have thorns! Sharp thorns that make the pruning part very unpleasant. My dislike of rosebushes is really quite justified.
This rosebush in particular drives me crazy. It has been cut down in the hopes that it would die. But it comes back. Last summer a good friend came over to help with yardwork. She actually pulled the rosebush out. So I assumed it was gone forever, but a month or two ago I noticed it was coming back. Again.
This rosebush got me thinking today. I started thinking about how life can be so difficult and so unpredictable. We are often handed horrible things with many thorns. Our choices are to keep fighting those things or to embrace them. Sometimes we are handed the death of someone very precious. Sometimes we may need to take on a different position during a critical time at work (as so many of us are needing to do now), and sometimes the life we pictured shifts into something different. Sometimes it feels like it would be easier if that rose bush were just not there.
Yet the rosebush keeps coming back, and sometimes we need to just not fight it. When things knock us down or start to rob us of our strength, we need to embrace that rosebush that is trying to survive. Because even with those thorns, there are tons of beautiful flowers.
Today I decided to embrace that rosebush. I’ve seen so much beauty come out of my struggles. I’ve persevered through some very difficult challenges and I’m finding beauty in life. And really, it feels so much better to embrace the rosebush than to fight it!
What I Can't Control 