Little Purple Flowers

In January the landscapers came and butchered our sage bushes. I had never seen pruning like that. One could scarcely call it gardening. When they were done, there was little left of our plants that was recognizable save the location of their roots. Every leaf was gone – and in January in Phoenix there were still many leaves to be lost. Every major branch was cut back, some were even torn.

It was very disheartening to walk outside that day and be met by these scrawny stumps that were once our big lush sage bushes. I won’t even tell you how my husband reacted – that’s for another blog!

For weeks I would walk up to the house and lament our sad stumps. I’d look longingly across the street at the reasonable landscaping going on over there. I’d remember with great sadness how wonderful they looked at Christmas with net lights covering their rotund beauty.

And then we saw a leaf. Even so, you can’t imagine that it would make a difference. Then, another. Soon, I stopped noticing the new growth altogether – as we often do with things we see every day, like children and cities.

Yesterday, I was unlocking my front door and a fragrance came to me. It was soft and beautiful and I immediately recognized it. Sage. Those sweet little flowers. I stepped back and really looked at my bushes again. There they were. Big, round, full and in need of trimming, for heaven’s sake! And absolutely covered in purple flowers.

Sometimes we are pruned, aren’t we? God in His wisdom removes from us what seems like beauty, what seems like necessity, what seems good enough. Sometimes we stand and look at ourselves and it feels like He may have taken the very thing we thought we needed to live. It’s not pretty. We feel torn and void. We do not understand when we are being cut back that it is the only way to grow from the inside out – the only way to fill out to our potential and be shaped by the Master Gardener. My prayer is that one day I will send a sweet fragrance to His nostrils.