I took a walk last weekend while I was staying at the lake. I was miserable walking up the steep hill and then I saw this beautiful little patch of flowers. They appeared to be growing out of the rocks! How does that even happen? It was literally a rocky cliff! It made me think about the rocky times in my life when I thought, “Nothing good could ever come of this mess!” Yet somehow, looking back, God had a plan.
There are times when you feel like you are actually tumbling down that cliff and you will absolutely not make it out in one piece. You may not, but God can make something beautiful out of all of the parts.
I know that there are situations that you have no control over, but during those times, I have found that I get closer to God. I am more diligent about my time with him. Maybe you become more generous with others and begin to see why grace is so important. Maybe you spend more time with a beloved family member or friend because you can see that we will not be here forever. Maybe you just find something that you do have control over and you go all in so that you can feel that sense of control over SOMETHING, ANYTHING. Perhaps you look at your current situation and realize how unimportant all the past drama was and how much better you will be now that you can take the unimportant parts out of the picture. All of those things sound like beauty to me, and trust me, I have experienced them all.
I think if you live long enough, you will experience them all. I also know that when you are in it, it can be brutal. Life is definitely not fair or always fun. However, if we can learn from the rocky times, and remember this beautiful patch of flowers, it might make some of our trials a little bit easier. We are all beautiful, but I believe we get even more beautiful as we learn from our rocky times. Our experiences continue to shape us until we are exactly what God intended us to be and we learn what He wanted us to learn. He doesn’t want us to forget about the hard stuff, but to make it all part of our story.
I wish for you, times that are not so rocky that you give up hope, but that because of your trials, you become a beautiful creation, like these flowers, that brings joy to others.
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