Caught in the Web

Last night, I looked at the facebook prayer and support group for the Westmont fire. There are many more members than students at the school and they seem to be a random group of people, but they all have one thing in common. They are all praying for the students and the school as it recovers from this fire. I thought that was so cool. We all have some small connection to the school. For me, it's my sister, for others its friends or maybe some graduated from Westmont years ago. But we can all come together in prayer. It was so amazing reading posts by people from places like Michigan, Texas, France and many others; and I'm here praying from Georgia. This is the kind of unity the body of Christ is supposed to have.

This made me think of how many people in a day pray for me or events that concern me. I know my parents and others from my church pray for me but there are also people I don't even know who pray for me. There are probably people praying for Toccoa Falls College or the state of Georgia (or California) and others praying for Riverpoint (and my home church, Bethany). That is just awesome! I love being held up by this web of prayer that surrounds me as well as being able to form the threads that hold others up, whether I know them or not. Now we need to work on bringing this unity and connection we have through prayer into the rest of our lives. We can come together as brothers and sisters in Christ and together we can stand.

As for the fire, I'm praying for beauty from ashes. God will be able to use this in ways which we cannot even imagine, so I pray that everyone stays open to His work and power so we can give Him the glory and praise He deserves.

Becoming

I never explained why I chose "Blossoming" as the heading for my blog. There is a reason and I believe it deserves some explanation. In drama in 7th grade I got the end-of-the-year award of "Blossoming Rose" because I was just starting out but something good was present in my acting. I was transforming from a little baby bud into a flower. My life has been doing a lot of blossoming lately. In the past year I've filled out 8 college applications, produced a 432 page yearbook, decided on a school, started college and have done countless other smaller activities that have dramatically impacted who I am now. I am no longer the cute little bud of a rose I once was. Yet, I am still a long way from being a fully formed flower. Compared to the length of its life, a rose is in the blossoming stage for quite a while and I am no different. Over the next years I will continue to do new things and discover more of God's plan for my life. This blog records the thought processes I go through as I become that rose. So thats the reason for the title. But lately, I have been thinking a little more about becoming who I will one day be.

It seems as if flowers just blossom. It is something that happens without any effort on their part. But I was thinking about how being the flower would feel. A rose bud is not planning on blossoming - it is just something that naturally happens. All of a sudden, the green leaves surrounding its delicate petals start pulling away. At first, there does not seem to be a reason for this exposure and pain. Another color now shows between the green leaves, but it is nothing spectacular. And then, very slowly, each individual petal is pulled down a little further. The petals must separate and fold out and as this happens, the most fragile and delicate part of the flower is exposed to the world - bugs, rain, wind and sun. But each day as a new petal is revealed, the rose becomes more and more beautiful until finally all of them pulled back and the effect is amazing. 

I think, so often, we see the beautiful rose and forget about the process it took to get there. The same thing happens in the lives of people. We see someone with qualities which we admire and we think about what an amazing person they are but forget about what they went through to become that person. Or, when we are experiencing suffering and hardship, we forget about who we are becoming. We forget this is a process we must undergo - that each soft and delicate petal must be pulled back and exposed, that we must break free from the leaves around us. And we forget that everything we go through will play a part in the person we are becoming - the rose of our lives.