Last night I was thinking about this path of healing I've been on the last 18 months. I was trying to think of something - an analogy - that would describe how this all started and how the process happened. Then I remembered something that happened about 20 years ago.
My mother had given me a Hoya Carnosa plant. It was lovely. I admired hers - and she had two of them, so she gave me one. This photograph to the right is a picture of a hoya carnosa in full bloom - each of the flowers emits a gloriously heady fragrance from drops of nectar that hang from the centre of each one.
I put the plant she gave to me in the spare bedroom ... intending to water it. At first I did, but after a time... I forgot. It shriveled and the leaves dropped off. The stems became brittle. It looked dead when I found it again, about 6 months later or so.
I was saddened. And I was unwilling to throw it out. Not yet. So I took it from that place where I had neglected it, and placed it in a central spot in our house, where I would see it every day.
I started to water it - keep the soil moist - for weeks. Nothing happened. It still looked dead. I poured water into the soil anyway.
Unknown to me, the root system was gathering strength, being renewed.
And then I noticed it.
A shoot! A tiny shoot coming from the centre of all that deadness. Encouraged, I kept up my program of pouring into its life. And it responded. Shoot after shoot, over time, started coming from the brittle twigs - and some of them eventually softened. The truly dead twigs fell off. New life had begun - it was like the plant felt safe enough to "branch out."
After about a year or two, there were long, glorious stems and from those, lush green leaves where once there had been deadness. But there were no blooms. I added a little tiny bit of plant food into the watering once a month, to give it a little boost.
Then the riotous blooming started. A nib appeared - it looked quite prickly. Then another, and another. Gorgeous clusters of hoya carnosa flowers grew from those nibs - one flower from each of the prickles. My plant book said to leave the nibs alone even after the flowers died and dropped off, because more flowers would bloom in the same spot again. And they did. Again and again and again - and each time it never ceased to amaze me.
For many years that plant gave back to me its beauty and the simple pleasure of being itself.
And all I really did was give it an atmosphere that was safe, persistently pour into its life and feed it with food that was appropriate for its species and size. It was in that atmosphere that it grew, flourished, and started giving back to me - and to its world. I just took care of it, and gave it the proper amount of light, water, and food to give it a chance ...to be.
That's what God did for me when I first started this journey - and what He continues to do. He brought me out into a safe place where I would not be neglected, where my dried-up spirit could be nourished. He never gave up on me. He poured His love and grace into me when I felt like I was abused, victimized, and abandoned, and He kept me in an atmosphere (with other people who had gone through the same process) where I could feel safe, where I could develop some roots - and eventually branch out.
Through this process, I came into who I really was. I discovered my inner beauty - all because of His loving care, His gracious acceptance of me the way I was, His insistence on giving me a safe place to be, and Him using people to be "Jesus with skin on" in my life. I started to blossom with gratitude in that atmosphere of love, nurturing, and acceptance.
And I am determined to live this day, this 24-hour period, toward Jesus. If you smell a sweet fragrance from my life, it's because of His loving care for me that there is the fragrance of me being me - for Him.
Finally.
My mother had given me a Hoya Carnosa plant. It was lovely. I admired hers - and she had two of them, so she gave me one. This photograph to the right is a picture of a hoya carnosa in full bloom - each of the flowers emits a gloriously heady fragrance from drops of nectar that hang from the centre of each one.
I put the plant she gave to me in the spare bedroom ... intending to water it. At first I did, but after a time... I forgot. It shriveled and the leaves dropped off. The stems became brittle. It looked dead when I found it again, about 6 months later or so.
I was saddened. And I was unwilling to throw it out. Not yet. So I took it from that place where I had neglected it, and placed it in a central spot in our house, where I would see it every day.
I started to water it - keep the soil moist - for weeks. Nothing happened. It still looked dead. I poured water into the soil anyway.
Unknown to me, the root system was gathering strength, being renewed.
And then I noticed it.
A shoot! A tiny shoot coming from the centre of all that deadness. Encouraged, I kept up my program of pouring into its life. And it responded. Shoot after shoot, over time, started coming from the brittle twigs - and some of them eventually softened. The truly dead twigs fell off. New life had begun - it was like the plant felt safe enough to "branch out."
After about a year or two, there were long, glorious stems and from those, lush green leaves where once there had been deadness. But there were no blooms. I added a little tiny bit of plant food into the watering once a month, to give it a little boost.
Then the riotous blooming started. A nib appeared - it looked quite prickly. Then another, and another. Gorgeous clusters of hoya carnosa flowers grew from those nibs - one flower from each of the prickles. My plant book said to leave the nibs alone even after the flowers died and dropped off, because more flowers would bloom in the same spot again. And they did. Again and again and again - and each time it never ceased to amaze me.
For many years that plant gave back to me its beauty and the simple pleasure of being itself.
And all I really did was give it an atmosphere that was safe, persistently pour into its life and feed it with food that was appropriate for its species and size. It was in that atmosphere that it grew, flourished, and started giving back to me - and to its world. I just took care of it, and gave it the proper amount of light, water, and food to give it a chance ...to be.
That's what God did for me when I first started this journey - and what He continues to do. He brought me out into a safe place where I would not be neglected, where my dried-up spirit could be nourished. He never gave up on me. He poured His love and grace into me when I felt like I was abused, victimized, and abandoned, and He kept me in an atmosphere (with other people who had gone through the same process) where I could feel safe, where I could develop some roots - and eventually branch out.
Through this process, I came into who I really was. I discovered my inner beauty - all because of His loving care, His gracious acceptance of me the way I was, His insistence on giving me a safe place to be, and Him using people to be "Jesus with skin on" in my life. I started to blossom with gratitude in that atmosphere of love, nurturing, and acceptance.
And I am determined to live this day, this 24-hour period, toward Jesus. If you smell a sweet fragrance from my life, it's because of His loving care for me that there is the fragrance of me being me - for Him.
Finally.
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