Sherrill S Enduring Rose

SHERRILL’S ENDURING ROSE

The world is full of flowers and none are without beauty to me, but there is no doubt in my mind that nothing created has ever eclipsed the rose. It will always be my favorite bloom. There are roses of every color and size and I love them all. I have a friend who has a garden filled with nothing but rare and special roses. He tends them every day and they are beautiful. While in Ecuador I saw where many of the world’s supply of long stemmed roses are grown, high in the mountains near the Columbian border. When you see a vase of a dozen longed-stemmed roses on a table you know someone really wanted to say something to another. Roses are still the messengers of love and affection through out the world.
Perhaps it tells something of my own personality, but my favorite rose is growing on an old bush on the west side of my old house. The bush was there when I move there forty-two years ago and has survived every attempt to destroy it. We never dusted or sprayed it. No one took the time to water it when we cared for the other plants. Part of its roots were cut off when we dug a French drain just outside its tiny space to keep water from flooding the house, and incidentally cut off its main source of water as well. It has lived through flood and drought, cold and heat and still, every year, it just keeps blooming! I don’t even know what its botanical name is, but I just call it “Sherrill’s Enduring Rose.”
One can not help feeling that is one of the really great qualities, whether in roses or in man. Endurance! It continues to survive and overcome in spite of all obstacles. Things that require little attention and yet produce something beautiful really have a very special place in a world which is so demanding and offers so little in return. I love my Enduring Rose!
Do you think God may also be a little like that? O, I know He loves us in spite of all the maintenance we demand, but isn’t it possible that He, like me, might just enjoy, every once in a while, one who requires little but produces much? What a beautiful thing is that which endures! I don’t know why my rose endures when others are dying, but I know what man is called to be, and I know who gives him the strength to do so! When we “fix our eyes on Jesus” we will also endure, in rain and drought, in Summer heat and Winter cold, He is the source which sustain us.
“Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Heb. 12:1-2)
Bill Sherrill
05/25/08

Bill Sherrill Office 936 564 2471
3914 North Street Home 936 564 8866
Nacogdoches, TX 75965 Cell 936 558 8977
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