Run across any thorns lately?
- Did you hear a no when you were so, so hoping for a yes?
- Did a family member or a friend disappoint you — or did you disappoint yourself?
- Were you overlooked for a longed-for recognition or promotion or award?
- Did you argue so badly with a loved one that reconciliation seems impossible?
- Were you accused of something you didn’t do or something you didn’t say?
- Has illness or injury caused you to become someone you don’t recognize?
- Are you grieving the loss of a loved one?
Life thorns, one and all.
And yet, that’s life, isn’t it?
There’s no avoiding disappointments. No life path that doesn’t lead us to heartache … heartbreak … the events in our lives that pain us and push us to the point of “why me, God?”
Maybe these “life thorns” would be easier to bear if we stopped being so surprised by them. If we reminded ourselves that life is hard … and some days, some weeks, some months, some years, are harder than others. The thorns seems to out-number the roses. It’s not about being a pessimist. It’s about being someone who lives real life … thorns and all … and still walks by faith, trusting in the beauty of the roses. No matter the thorniness of today, there were roses before, and there will be the beauty of roses again.
Faith acknowleges the pain of life thorns, even as it searches for the beauty of the rose — even if the beauty is found in a memory.
In Your Words: What’s life like for you right now: roses or thorns? How do you “take the world as you find it, thorns and all”?
[Tweet “In Others’ Words: Taking the World as We Find It #InOthersWords #lifequotes #thorns”] [Tweet “”… take the world as we find it, including the thorns.” #perspective #quotes #SUCCESS”]
Comments 5
I am writing this at the end of the hardest and most viciously unpleasant day I can remember. The best part of it was not realizing that one could vomit with such a degree of violence. The middle was realizing that one could lose THAT much blood and function.
The worst I leave to to your imagination. That there is no insurance…no medical help available without beggaring my wife…well, fill in the blanks. It’s obscene, in the USA in 2015.
Roses or thorns? It really doesn’t matter. Facing the abyss with honour is the only thing. All else is civilian frippery.
I am still here. Should I survive the night, I will be here tomorrow.
This will not bloody well break me. This is that fight for which I was formed, and born.
Bring it.
Author
Bring it.
Those words embody the essence of who you are, Andrew.
And they go so far beyond thorns and roses.
And I am here, after a night that was by turns awful and awesome (in the more formal definition of the word).
It’a all good because HE is all good.
Author
Thankful to know you are still here, my friend.
I’m glad Andrew was here this morning. He is such an inspiration to me.