Taking life lessons from the aftermath of pruning

I was recently asked by someone to think about and write my thoughts about pruning the roses. Writing, I, believe, is good for the soul and allows you to clear your mind. Glen’s brief, or instructions were quite clear…. Write down 3 points, and 3 sub-points after that to organize and present your thoughts. I’m respectfully going to disobey by keeping the topic, but writing from the heart.

I can’t get away from thinking about the branches that are cut from the rose bush. I know nothing about gardening – I am simply just not that way inclined, so I don’t know why pruning occurs, or what value it adds to life of the plants. Somebody offered to prune our 3 little wild rose plants the other day, and I can only write about what I saw.

Let me tell you what I saw. I only saw a few short sticks left on the rose stems. I only saw a pile of what was previously a part of the rose bushes. It lay there, in the way, and headed for the dustbin.

Now, how can we apply this to life in a meaningful way? Let’s see… There’s this:

• The pruned part of the roses do not lose their identity. They remain thorny.
• The pruned roses have potential. Each of the twigs can be planted in fertile ground and become a brand new, flourishing rose bush.
• The pruned bushes are less valued by those who don’t understand their future potential and are sent to the dust heaps in order to get rid of them.
• The pruned roses will decompose and become fertilizer to provide essential nutrients and become fodder to other plants.

For each of us, there comes a time when a cycle of our life is completed. It is organic, and we shed what is no longer needed for the next chapter. However, the impact, the lessons, the value of our past need not be forgotten. It still has incredible potential – to breed new life, to provide essential guidance and growth for our future.

Thought the past lessons and experiences may have had some hurt, some scars, some roughness about them, their true value is still in remaining authentic and true. If we recognize the thorns in our lives, and we don’t try to hide them or sweep them aside, they will be what helps us to improve, to do things differently, and to do things better.

Of course, there will be those who despise the value of our lives and past experiences. This will happen, and will be because they don’t understand the value as we do. Let’s acknowledge this, and move on. We are living our own lives – not theirs. We are dreaming our own dreams and heading towards our own destiny. We don’t live for them and should never allow the naysayers, and those with words of disdain to cloud our lives, our passion and our dreams.

Let’s see those times of pruning, and those off-shoots for the value that they really are, and for the value that they bring to our lives.