life from death

The lady of the house here left me in charge of her plants. Uh oh. Although I would love to be a gardener someday, at this point in my life, I can't say that I am one. But... this lady has about a million plants that she LOVES in her house and she left me to take care of them. There's responsibility for you... ;)

Anyway... there's 4 little potted flowers in the bathroom, and all of them are doing fine... except for the purple one. It's dying. I don't know why... because I water it just as much as the others. Funny thing... the lady here left me a message and instructed me that when a flower dies, I should pull its head off. Huh? So... I noticed that the purple flower was dying, and after some hesitation, I pulled all of the heads off... and was sure that was the end of the little purple flower. Two days ago, I walked into the bathroom to find that the purple flower had BLOOMED again... small blooms, but they were there nevertheless, and the flower has been growing ever since. Yay, I didn't kill it!

Oh, but there's truth here. I have a good friend visiting me this week in Germany, and as I described to her some of what I've felt God doing in me during the past few weeks, she remarked, "you're dying, Bethany." I thought about that, and she's right... I am dying. There's old "stuff" in me that's been sticking around for a long time, threatening to drain the LIFE out of me. How thankful I am that Jesus is relentless in killing that old stuff, teaching me that the old me must die... forcing me to see what He's after, even while I kick and scream and don't cooperate well.

But... the amazing truth is that there's always a death before there's a resurrection. If I'm dying, it's because I'm learning to LIVE. And if the old me is going away, it's so that there's more room for the resurrected Jesus to take His rightful place in my heart and to make me more like HIM. I feel like my flower heads have been pulled off and my little purple blooms are quite small at this point... but I'm grateful. I thank Jesus that He knows me so much better than I do... and even when I don't cooperate well with Him, He still relentlessly yet patiently pursues me. I'm very grateful for what He has done for me.