Give the Stink Blossoms to Jesus

Years ago, I heard something that has stayed with me and helped me many times. I wish I could recall who I heard it from, but it has been decades and all I remember is the core of the story. It was a famous Christian lady, either a speaker or a singer. She was talking about the struggle of knowing how to handle praise from people in a way that was good.

This can be a complicated thing. One of the core traits of a Christian is supposed to be humility. If a person just sits back and soaks up praise from people as if it's their due...that does not fit with the ideal of humility. For many, accepting thanks and kind words feels just like that- as if they are being prideful, and as if they are taking for themselves praise that is due to God. On the other hand, any way that a person tries to turn the praise to God can feel rejecting to the person who offered the kind words. It can seem self-righteous, or super-spiritual (not in a good way) and ungrateful. This is not an easy thing, to figure out how to handle praise and appreciation in a way that both honors God and honors the other person. As one who has done things "up front" in church over the years, I understand this, and I have had a number of conversations with others who struggle to find that right balance.

I have many times referred back to what I heard all those years ago. That well-known lady spoke of trying to find this balance and she gave a solution that has worked for me, too. She said that every time a person praised her for a job well done, she imagined that they had handed her a beautiful rose. She thanked them sincerely for their kind words, and later when she was alone, she would imagine bundling all of those roses into a bouquet. She would picture herself handing that beautiful, fragrant bouquet to God and saying, "We both know that all of this praise and appreciation really belongs to You."

I love that. We can be thankful for the kind words that people say, while still giving all the praise and honor to God. It keeps our own hearts in a good place and frees us to be gracious to others by simply saying, "Thank you so much. I'm glad you enjoyed it."

I have never, until this week, thought of this concept from the other end of the spectrum. I have never thought of it as a way to handle hurts that are dealt to us.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I wrestle with resentment. I'm not proud of this. It's ugly and petty and just...wrong. But there it is. When someone hurts me with their words, or by being inconsiderate or thoughtless, or by shaming me with some failing from my past (or my present!) it is not easy for me to just let it flow by without touching me.

I have learned deep, important, life-changing lessons on forgiveness over the years, and I have applied those lessons in just these kinds of situations. By the grace of God, and by His love flowing through me, I have been able to forgive people fully and from my heart, even while they are still saying wounding, ugly words to me.

But right now, my heart is raw. Every nerve of my emotions is more on edge because of the deep waters of grief that I'm walking through, every moment of every day. Even during the times that I'm not thinking about it, the grief is still there. The reality of it, and of its impact on me, never goes away.

In some ways, this immense grief has given me a bigger perspective. Some things that would have frustrated me before just don't even phase me now. On the scale of things that are a Big Deal, those things don't even register.

At the same time, my emotions have suffered a terrible blow...kind of like a full body third degree burn. It has left everything in me vulnerable and exposed and...raw.

And so, things just hurt.

And when I am hurt, especially now, I struggle with resentment. There is a part of me that really wishes that the entire world would be especially considerate and gentle and kind to me, because I'm really really sad and deeply wounded.

But this is the real world, and people are human. And we are all, always, just doing the best we know how...which means that we still do and say things that hurt one another or leave others feeling overlooked or neglected.

As I wrestled with some feelings of hurt this past week, I suddenly saw this whole new way to handle it, which definitely felt like a real "God thing"- that He was giving me a picture of what to do with all those stored up wounded feelings.

I saw that I could do with them the exact same thing that I do with the wonderful feelings that come when people praise and appreciate something I have done.

I can take those hurtful words and picture them as....stink blossoms. These stink blossoms are ugly, foul smelling and half-rotten, and their stems are completely covered with long, wickedly sharp spines.

I thought about this, and then I gathered up the fistful of stink blossoms that had been handed to me, and I bundled them into a bunch. I looked at them, and acknowledged the real hurt of them, and then I handed them to God. He is so much better equipped to hold them than I am. I asked Him to take the hurt and sadness in my heart and just carry it for me.

This is really just a different way of seeing forgiveness.

In the past, I didn't need such a strong visual image to help me to forgive. These days, I do.

I am going to keep on using this to help me deal with hurts. I will pull the stiff thorns from the raw, exposed skin of my heart, pick those sticky, foul-smelling blossoms out of my thoughts, and ask my loving, kind Father to take them away for me. I will ask Him, again, to heal my sore places and to pour His grace through me to others.

Resentment, if it's allowed to put down roots and stay awhile, grows into bitterness.

Resentment and bitterness are also like quicksand. They look like a sound place to stand, and they sure seem easier than walking through the hard parts of this journey with an open heart. They may even seem like very reasonable responses to legitimate hurt, but they are treacherous. They will suck us in and destroy us if we let them.

Especially...Especially when we are sad and wounded, we must be on guard against the seeds of resentment and bitterness. We are so vulnerable to the lure of those insidious weeds. They are kudzu to the soul. They are Med. Sage and thistles. They are Loco Weed and Cholla. They are ivy that looks pretty but slowly chokes the living tree to death.

I wanted to share this, because I imagine I'm not the only one who wrestles with handling hurt in a good way. I hope this will prove helpful to others, as it helps me.

To me, this is just one more facet of those words that have helped me so much these past months: "The Lord is close to the broken-hearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit." (Psalm 34:18)