fragrance of the rose

This past Friday my sisters and I took our mother to stroll through a lovely resort that my parents had briefly escaped to as young parents over 50 years ago.  As we walked the grounds we spotted a lovely rose garden.  My older sister was drawn to the flowers and noticed their wonderful fragrance.  I also sampled the glorious aroma and marvelled at this magnificent plant that combined stunning visual and olfactory beauty in one package.  A little research found that it takes about 2,000 crushed roses to make one gram of rose oil.  Perfume is then produced from the rose oil.  Another fact I came across is that rose's don't have thorns...they have "prickles".  Thorns are a form of stem but prickles are special growths that grow out of the surface of the stem.  The purpose of the prickles is to allow the rose plant to "attach" to other plants it is growing around to climb so that the flowers can get the five hours of light they need every day in the summer.  The thought occurs that we are like roses to our Lord.  He has formed us to drink in light and produce beauty that is expressed in different dimensions.  We are precious to Him and the crushing impact of life's difficulty produces glorious perfume manifest directly from our lives.   2 Corinthians 2:15 For we are to God the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing.   Hosea 14:6 His branches shall spread;       His beauty shall be like an olive tree,       And his fragrance like Lebanon.        7 Those who dwell under his shadow shall return;       They shall be revived like grain,       And grow like a vine.       Their scent shall be like the wine of Lebanon.   blessings, Rob Smith