Lessons from a rose garden

My rose garden is a riot of colour and every time I see it, I think ‘abundance’. With abundance being my word for this year, I have been pondering the conditions that brought about this abundance of blooms and the lessons that I can apply in my life.

The opposite of abundance is scarcity and, in our world today, we often live in a scarcity mindset, one driven by fear of not being enough.

Author Brené Brown puts it this way:

Scarcity thrives in a culture where everyone is hyperaware of lack. Everything from safety and love to money and resources feels restricted or lacking. We spend inordinate amounts of time calculating how much we have, want, and don’t have, and how much everyone else has, needs, and wants. The greatest casualties of a scarcity culture are our willingness to own our vulnerabilities and our ability to engage with the world from a place of worthiness.

Brené Brown

But my roses aren’t functioning from a scarcity mindset, instead they are taking everything that is given to them and using that to help them thrive.

The weather has been unseasonably cool and wet, and this has created ideal conditions for an abundance of flowers. We also cut down a tree that had been shading and overshadowing the rose garden and now they are greedily reaching for the sunlight.

Yet, my roses don’t just take the good things such as watering, fertiliser and pest control, they also need the hard times to help them bloom. For in winter I pruned my roses hard. I cut them right back to encourage new blossoms come this spring.

So, I am learning that abundance often takes a hard pruning, a cutting back in order for there to be the right conditions. I need to remember that the hard times are for my growth and to not despise the day of small beginnings.*

Abundance also requires feeding and watering; sitting in prayer and soaking in the word.

Abundance is about eliminating pests and weeds, those distractions that pull me from my place and my purpose. Like comparison and competition, and the ever-present lull of social media.  

And finally, it is an opening up of myself to the light. For my rose garden is generous, it is a joyous celebration of colour and fragrance. My roses did not stay in bud waiting for an audience but give freely of their gifts regardless, for they know they are enough just as they are.

My prayer for you today is that you may also turn your face to the light and bloom right where you are, knowing that you are enough.

Peace be with you,

Jodie

*Zecheriah 4:10