Singleness is the Rose

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Home for Thanksgiving!!!  I've taken some time to read through some old journals last night and was reminded of a very good promise.  I usually don't share things this personal on my blog or in general, but I think sometimes it just needs to be said.  Being a Christian girl you grow up with books and sermons all preaching about the gift of singleness and setting your heart aside for God and it's easy to lose sight of that sometimes, but here is something I learned two years ago:

"God's little treasures should be picked like flowers... at the end of the day you have a bouquet."  

It was a seemingly silly little comment from a devotional I had been reading, but this is what God showed me from it on that particular day:

"Lord to be given peace and reminded of the little things I'm going to draw my bouquet.  Remember all You do..."  I drew a bouquet and wrote everything from getting a parking space to remembering my freedom in Christ next to each flower then I quoted this:

"Elisabeth Elliot says, 'your love is a gift and if it is a gift you are grateful to the Giver.  To acknowledge your gratitude to Him is also to acknowledge your dependence on Him, to acknowledge above all the authority of Christ.' ..."

<and I journaled some other thoughts, I read the book of Ruth, and ended with this:>

"Father, you orchestrate things so perfectly...  Right now I am called to be a Ruth gleaning in the fields... Singleness is the ROSE in my bouquet... Let me treasure it."

Very simple, but true.  The world so often looks at singleness as some sort of bane of existence, something to be avoided, something to be remedied.  But in the light of the love of God no other love could compare and this is a beautiful season of life to learn to love Him more as He already loves us.  The funny thing about me choosing to call love a rose is that roses have thorns.  I would assume I chose a rose for that analogy because I was thinking that it is a very valued and romantic flower, but thorns hurt and singleness does not necessarily come without a little sting.  Nevertheless, it is a gift to be treasured. 

Enjoy your day sweet world and stop to smell the roses!!

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