Even Thistles Can Bloom Where They Are Planted!

On our way back from going mushroom hunting up in the bluffs last evening, 

I spied this tall thistle in the cattail reeds by a swampy area.

And today I was thinking that 

even a thistle can bloom where it is planted.

Maybe you feel a little bit like a thistle, too, sometimes.

Some people are nice and sweet and soft and beautiful and personable and

cultivated and elegant and elite and classy and in charge and in control

and charming and

just seem to have everything going for them. 

And then there are the--

well, the others.

The thistles, the thorns, the weeds, the wild flowers. The grass, the wild morning glories that just show up everywhere at the wrong time and place, perpetually doing all the wrong things.

Maybe sometimes you feel like that sort of person based on a few uncanny things that have 

happened in your life.

And you end up like this funny blackbird we watched in town one day as we waited by a stop light.

It was standing there trying to figure out what to do with this little white plastic bag

that was trashed there on the sidewalk.

We all have plastic trash bags lying around in our lives that we have to choose what to do with.

There it is, right in our way. 

There it is, messing up the sidewalk, messing up our lives.

What do you with that crazy issue that plopped down into your life?

Sometimes we have to take a closer look, and deal with it. 

It's not really wise to believe that if you ignore a problem long enough, it will go away.

It might.

But it might not. It might get worse. 

And you really don't want to be dragging that stupid problem around for the rest of your life

like this crazy blackbird was dragging this trash bag around on the sidewalk with its beak!

God has better plans for thistles than to just sit there being prickly.

He wants every thistle that He made

to bloom.

Jonathan brought me this bouquet today that Danny had picked outdoors somewhere.

You really couldn't beat it for something beautiful, now could you?

God made thistles to bloom,

and birds to fly, not to drag a bunch of garbage around. 

 

Timmy was flying this kite he'd bought recently,

hanging onto it from the trampoline.

And so there it was--where kites and birds and hearts should be--
flying free with the sunshine and blue sky,
not being dragged through the dirt.
Jonathan told me Sunday as we looked at the concrete he'd poured on Saturday,
that the pastor could expect the concrete to crack and whiten,
because that's what concrete does, like this concrete I saw later at another place.

And that is why, he said, in a day or two, he needs to get in there and use a diamond blade
to saw nice, smooth, planned cracks (seams) ahead of time--to prevent worse and uglier cracks down the road.

 And so we have to understand, that God, the Master of our lives,
sometimes uses the diamond blade of difficulties to saw cracks (seams) into our lives that leave
us looking a bit broken,
 a bit seamed,
a bit scarred,
 a bit cracked.
But in His divine wisdom, He knows that it is to prevent
worse cracking down the road!

He saws our heart's concrete into pieces

so that we can stay in one piece down the road. 

He plants the thistles just like He plants the roses,

and they can both bloom free!

He allows us to go through hard places

so we can come out singing His praises

and free as a bird on the wing...

like these swallows that were fluttering and flittering about near the window

this morning--freely perching on branches in the sky and sunshine,

and not dragging about some trash bag on dirty city sidewalks.

Swallows only bother with dirt long enough to make just a little mud

to build their nests with.

,

And then they soar!

Lift our wings, Lord, from dragging in the mud.

Teach us to soar on swallows' wings, 

to flutter in the breeze on the tip top branches

of Your marvelous grace!

Teach us to bloom, like the thistle or the rose, both part of Your perfect creation,

to bloom right where we are planted!