ROSES ARE RED- February 12, 2009

Roses are red, violets are blue, sugar is sweet and so are you. I remember that little nursery rhyme from my childhood and even shared it with my own children as they were growing up. That little rhyme hit me like a ton of bricks as I recall harsh words and ugly actions towards others. There are days when I get up and I feel anything but sweet. The world has interrupted my fairytale dream of how life is supposed to be and I am left with a choice to make. Will I be kind and loving or will I be mean-spirited and hateful. My fears and anxieties over my own inadequacies flood my mind. My inability to make everyone happy crowds into my thoughts and squeezes the life out of me. I want to scream! Ever feel like that?

Do you ever think that life has given you anything but a fairytale? I know that I do. As little girls we watched Cinderella and Snow White and saw as their lives were transformed from ordinary to extraordinary. They were beautiful and sweet, kind and gentle young ladies who endured harsh realities in their fairytale life but in the end they were rescued from those unloving families and saved by the prince. One thing those fairytale princesses had in common, they were beautiful inside and out. Who wouldn’t love someone like that? Who wouldn’t want to be her? But they are just fairytale lives.

Everyday we have a choice to make. God has looked past the all the make-up and jewelry and fine dress and sees what is on the inside of our hearts. We can choose to live life thinking that God loves me just the way I am and do nothing to change or we can purpose in our hearts that God loves me just the way I am but His desire is that I become just like Him. I can choose to be angry or I can choose to laugh. I can choose to love or I can choose to hate. I can choose to rejoice or I can choose sorrow. I can choose bitterness or I can choose forgiveness. Through all of these things God has given me the ability to choose. The wonderful thing about all of these choices is that God has said if you want to make the right choice, here is what you need to do. “ I have written several wonderful books for you to read. I have put them all in one volume and it’s called the Bible. Have you ever read it?” Do you want to read a love story, try my book on called the Song of Solomon? Do you want a book about parenting, I have one called Proverbs. Do you like mysteries? I have several of those in there. I heard you like the story of Cinderella, but I have a real life story of a young girl names Esther who became a queen.”

Ouch! That hurts. Jesus set before us a wonderful example to live by. His life is not a fairytale, it is truth and beauty and grace and mercy and joy and gladness and love. God loves me unconditionally. Warts and all but he has said that we can be “transformed by the renewing of our minds”. Women love stories of transformation. We are drawn to them. We love movies and TV shows about Cinderella lives. We love seeing the girl rescued by the handsome prince. We love the stories of taking a less than beautiful girl and transforming her into and exquisite and beautiful woman. We love to watch HGTV and Extreme Makeover because secretly we want to be the one who is getting the makeover!

God listens when I complain about the unfairness of life, and how I deserve better. Then he gently reminds me that I have a choice to make and only He and I can work on this. It is not my family’s responsibility to make me happy. It is not my boss or co-workers responsibility to make me happy. It is mine. I can change the way I think. I can renew my mind. The Message Bible reads this way; So here's what I want you to do,(so practical) God helping you: (I cannot do it alone) Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering ( that just about covers everything). Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to (and accepting of) your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. Embrace what God does for you. He changes you from the inside out and then you really sweet as sugar!