Knocked Down But Not Out!
Our steep seaside garden abounds in foxgloves. Although there were fewer this year, they promised to be the best ever. Their tall erect spikes looked magnificent with their purple flowers. The blooms at the base were already well formed and as the name implies, you can fit your finger tip into their delicate freckled inner.
However, torrential rain and high winds swept through our garden last weekend, while we were away. We returned home to find the foxgloves bent and flattened down to the ground, with their best blooms blown away. They looked a sorry site. My first instinct was to call it a day, pull them up and throw them on the compost heap. I decided however, to wait to see what might happen. Within a day or so, all the spiky ends of the stems had bent round, reared up, and reached for the sky. In the warmth of the sun, the remaining flower buds are already opening up. The plants don't look the same, but they have a beautiful new gracefulness, as if to say "We are not going to take it lying down, we will show you!"
We may get knocked down, flattened and battered by life's events. Perhaps a calamity, death of a loved one, serious illness or financial loss. Whatever it is, the effect upon us can be overwhelming and devastating. We may feel we'll never get through, we're finished, it is just too hard to go on. But as we look to God in our numbness, as we take the hand of Jesus, already reaching out, hope starts to rise. Slowly, as we express the pain within, we begin to be warmed and strengthened by the Son and flourish again.
Sooner or later we will be able to lift our heads and stand tall. We will not be the same, but in looking back, we will know we have come through and have discovered something new and beautiful.
Someone once remarked to me, that with Jesus, we don't fall down, we fall UP!
"He has sent me to bind up the broken hearted -- to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the LORD for the display of his splendour." Isaiah 61:1-3 New International Version
However, torrential rain and high winds swept through our garden last weekend, while we were away. We returned home to find the foxgloves bent and flattened down to the ground, with their best blooms blown away. They looked a sorry site. My first instinct was to call it a day, pull them up and throw them on the compost heap. I decided however, to wait to see what might happen. Within a day or so, all the spiky ends of the stems had bent round, reared up, and reached for the sky. In the warmth of the sun, the remaining flower buds are already opening up. The plants don't look the same, but they have a beautiful new gracefulness, as if to say "We are not going to take it lying down, we will show you!"
We may get knocked down, flattened and battered by life's events. Perhaps a calamity, death of a loved one, serious illness or financial loss. Whatever it is, the effect upon us can be overwhelming and devastating. We may feel we'll never get through, we're finished, it is just too hard to go on. But as we look to God in our numbness, as we take the hand of Jesus, already reaching out, hope starts to rise. Slowly, as we express the pain within, we begin to be warmed and strengthened by the Son and flourish again.
Sooner or later we will be able to lift our heads and stand tall. We will not be the same, but in looking back, we will know we have come through and have discovered something new and beautiful.
Someone once remarked to me, that with Jesus, we don't fall down, we fall UP!
"He has sent me to bind up the broken hearted -- to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the LORD for the display of his splendour." Isaiah 61:1-3 New International Version
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