12 Roses for 12 Months

A rose for every month to celebrate this anniversary — a year today since my open-heart surgery was booked.

God's mercy, grace, goodness and faithfulness can startle you with such breathtaking beauty. 

So much has happened in this year. I haven't been able to process it all. Maybe, I never will. But, slowly, pieces unfold again and I see a little less fuzzy when I open my eyes to God's mercies that are new every morning. In moments that are like when you flip through old snapshots that give you an idea of the big picture. I get another quick glance back when I am standing in my brown birks with my arms full of a white flower box and I open it up and it's filled with roses of many colours and I'm speechless.

Until these roses arrived in my driveway I had not even recognized the significance of this day. Then I remembered that a year ago today, I sat looking out on Crystal Lake not sure how to take the next step forward after the conversation I had just had with the heart surgeon's secretary. She made it so matter of fact, so simple; a square on the calendar at the end of the month. That square was the only hope I had for having any more than 365 of those squares.

And as my loving family who sent me these roses reminded me, it is: "a year since you started preparing to say good-bye to your family, a year of upheaval and change, a year of miracles and blessings, a year of suffering and pain, a year of prayers and petitions, a year full of physical and spiritual family buoying you mentally, emotionally, physically, a year of devastating lows and euphoric highs…a long year full of God's goodness and grace…"

Tonight, I look at these roses and I'm reminded how God makes all things beautiful in His time.

His mercy is new every morning.

Twelve roses for twelve months of God's abundant blessing poured out so full that my life is brimful of God's goodness.