I Call This One 'Fledgling Flower.'

A common motif in my ongoing dialogue with the Lord is the rose. The pink rose, usually, but any rose will do. I am not particularly attached to roses, as a flower. I am fonder, for example, of the sunflower, or even the carnation. In any event, it is the multi-layered conspiculously blooming flower's flower that illustrates His answer to my prayers.

Once in 1996 I'd been given a pink rose by a good friend, Rebecca. It was beautiful, long-stemmed, and a first. No one had ever given me a rose before. I remember her asking me if it was the right colour. I told her that it could have been polka dot and it would have been the "right" colour. A day or so later I was sitting in my office at work wrapping up the day and feeling gloomy about the fact that at age 23 I was still single, no prospects anywhere. My gloomy mood morphed into true sadness, and I began to talk to God out loud as I often do when I am alone. Complain, more like. In the middle of my tirade, I heard him whisper to me to "sit down." I was so shocked at the absolute certainty of having audibly processed another voice that I immediately complied.

So, upon sitting, His voice continued. "Look at your rose."

I did.

"What colour is it?"

"Pink." [out loud, I'm answering, mind you]

"What makes pink?"

"Red and white."

"And in the language of roses, what do 'red' and 'white' mean?"

"Red is for passion, or romantic love; white is for purity and innocence."

"That's the kind of love I'm preparing for you."

[End of dialogue. Sic.]

Several years later, praying with two other women in my kitchen, I received a vision of a sickly looking flower, somewhat generic, not specifically a rose, not not a rose, either.

God gave me an impression this time. I knew that this flower was my relationship with Mr. Renaissance, in its then current state. God showed me that everything this flower would need for blooming, it already possessed--that no amount of watering, pruning, repotting, or uprooting and replanting would do it any good. All it needed was to be left to itself, to grow in its own time. In fact the lesson was that poking and prodding it would deter growth. Further, I intuited that Mr. R. would need to come to his own conclusion about how he felt about me, and that when he did, that's when our relationship would be what it was capable of becoming. But I needed to wait and not try and coax him into a realization. I guess he is also the fledgling.