Pruned!

God never ceases to amaze me. That sounds so cliche', but truly- I live like a 2 year old, in constant wonder. When we have our eyes on fixed Him I just feel that we see what we were meant to see, instead of what the world has manipulated us to see. We are so bombarded with images that the media has taught us to believe are beautiful and good- and they are neither. In truth, they are usually sad and distorted... and inviting us to lust or sin... or both. I hate that my girlies see over 50 images of nudity/sexuality between our home in Davis and our church in Sacramento. That's over 100 every Sunday. Certainly not what He intended for us.
This is going to get a little raw, and it is not my intent to offend, but this is my story- and I'm telling it. I saw God in a ratty pot of roses today, and it got a little ugly.
A friend came to visit yesterday and we took the kids to the Dixon May Fair. We saw beautiful exhibits, played my favorite whiffle-ball-into-the-colored-cup carnival game (AND WON!!!) and placed bets on which kid would puke after riding the Viper.
A good time had by all.
After the fair we all came back to my place. The kids wanted to swim and we wanted to not be around kids, so the plan was to run some errands for an hour while Sarah watched her sis at the pool- then we would figure out dinner. Before we left, my friend poked his head out the sliding glass door to peek at the soccer game that was echoing up to the 2nd story window from the park across the street. I cringed!
The patio had become a bit of a catch all after our move.
OK, it looked like "hoarders" alright!  I also have the stinkiest freakin' cat on the planet, so her litter box has been moved out there, adding to the ambiance. Being a sweet friend, the only thing he could muster was..."your roses have aphids". He he. I know.
Let me tell you about my roses....
First of all, they've been forced to live on the patio, which would make anyone feel like crap. They are a product of their environment. They are also used to being 6 different roses. When I moved, they were all shoved, mostly willy nilly, some broken, into one big pot. They were all chopped to the same size and I can no longer tell them apart. One of them is a minature rose. Two are climbers and I think one is a bush. They are all so covered in creepy crawlers they look more like one giant garden pest than what they were just 3 months ago.... The stars of the garden.       
I know, intimately, how they feel.
A little displaced, but putting down roots and just trying to breathe.     Just breathe.
So, after church today I decided the next time someone is over I don't want to relive that slow motion moment of someone grabbing the patio door handle while I am dying of shame- so I tackled the patio. Took 2 hours and it's only 10 x 15. Getting the picture? I scrubbed the "fish pot" (a medium size planter with no hole in the bottom doing double duty as our pond- complete with goldfish and a trendy water plant) to my horror I pulled out as many dead fish as living ones, replanted and revived the half dead succulents that were interspersed with what must have been airborne weeds, polished up the glass on the sweet old vintage wrought iron table and plopped my new planter right in the center - a teapot shaped beauty painted with ladybugs in every color you can imagine. Unbelievable the transformation!!      However- the nasty pot of roses was staring at me from the corner- all abuzz in green bugs.          UUgggghh.
I have no pruners, no clippers and no gloves. This should be fun.
I started by standing over it and clipping off deadness with my kitchen shears.  This seemed to take forever. After chopping these pathetic looking, thorn laden beasts for what seemed like hours I had created a huge mess. I was also barefoot and the huge mess hurt to step on. So, I sat down in the one spot that was open and got to work carefully reaching between the treacherous limbs to get the old dead leaves and branch clippings off the soil. And then I heard Him. And tears were streaming down my face uncontrolably. And I feel like I am losing my mind and then I remember that I already lost it and maybe I just found it? Maybe He just found it and gave it back.
My hands and wrists were stinging. I was so focused on the roses, I didn't notice that I was bleeding. My hands and wrists were bleeding. There were thorns all around me. I was covered in aphids- my eyes, my mouth.   I can only tell you that God told me that shame is no way to live. It was not audible, but it was real. We are not supposed to have doors that people we care about can't open. We are not hiding anything- our hurt can be seen through the glass door. We have to clean it up and move on. Your friends want to enjoy the soccer game. And you want to enjoy your friends.
There was a person in church today that I will simply refer to as my aphid. A stumbling block. Someone who represents a whole lot of pain and a whole lot of hatred that was sent my way. She has been in my eyes and in my mouth for much too long. I do not know why God chose a pot of hodge podge half dead roses to reveal a message of love to me today, but I got it.           
When you clean up the pot, the aphids go away.
When you get the rotting leaves and dead branches out, you remove the food source and they have to move on to survive.
And then the rose can recover.     And sprout leaves.     And eventually she blooms. 

And then she remembers who she is... the climber, or the bush, or the minature.

And all of a sudden, she is the star of the garden. 

And she LOVES that her garden now consists of six roses, all different shapes, colors and sizes, all sharing the same soil. Because now they look like community, instead of chaos. And she wonders why she ever had them so far apart to begin with, because clearly, they belong together.

And she forgot that they ever had aphids, because all they are and all she ever remembers them to be....          is lovely.           All it took was a little pruning.

Amen.