Crushed Rose Petals

I'm still pondering this video clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3BMtTHw6Mw

The things that stick out to me now are:

suffering.
crushed rose petals.
crushing exudes a fragrance.

Joni (in the above clip) discusses the crushing of the rose petals in terms of marriage.  Boy, is she right!  As I think over almost 22 years of marriage, it's the crushing - suffering - that has brought out the best in us, in our marriage, in our character as a couple.

However, today I think of the crushing of the rose petals in terms of life in general.  Suffering has crushed things in me that quite frankly needed crushing:  my pride, unhealed places, selfishness, perspective.  When I suffer, if I allow it ... the process becomes a pleasant fragrance.

Here's the kicker, I fight the process.  I want a quick fix, a band aid, a soothing balm to heal the pain and move right on into "normal".  I don't want to suffer.  I don't want to hurt.  Yet, as I look back on my marriage and the places my feet have made indention's on planet earth ... some of the best things I have now are due to suffering.

Recently, someone was recalling their current hardships.  At the end of the conversation, they said what so many of us say when we are trying to bear up under the weight of suffering ... "but I know God won't give me anymore than I can handle."  I said an unspoken, "Amen, sister" under my breath and moved on.

Later, I got to thinking about her statement!  The more I thought about it, the more I began to sense that it's a lie we tell ourselves to try to make us feel that the current struggle is something we can handle.  Truth is ... we are weaklings that haven't a fighting chance of survival.

Anything I walk through, I walk alongside a Comforter who is blazing the path for me.  In reality, however, I look at the circumstance and freak out, then figure out my strategy, then jump in with both feet.  Too often I find myself bobbing for air in a sea of trouble of my own making and wonder why God didn't show up!  However, God desires to stand there with me on the onset ... surveying the land so to speak.  My job is to look to Him ... to ask "OK, so there we have it.  What do we do?" ... better yet ... "What do you want to do?  I'll follow!"

That's hard, isn't it?  I feel I have to "do" to make things happen.  I feel that if I don't "do" then God won't "do" for me ... and then what?

Part of the crushing of the rose petals for me at present is to wait ... on God ... and not on me.  What He says, I'll do.  I don't have to "do" to find His approval.  I just have to show up ... ask ... and wait for His response.  That's scary.  But then again ... that's faith, isn't it?

holding petals,
christina