Bridle Bouquet
By Elisa Morgan
My dogs whined and paced at the back deck door, alerting me that someone - or something - was approaching outside. Peering through the sliding glass and over the deck rail, I watched a horse and rider draw near the split rail fence bordering our yard. She dismounted and bent to pick something up, a smile tweaking her lips.
I strained to see. What had she discovered just beyond my yard?
Rising with her "find," she remounted and then leaned over her horse's head to affix a battered and drooping blossom to the bridle. I recognized it as the very fading one I'd cut from its thorny bramble and discarded over the fence just hours before.
This wandering horse rider fashioned a bridle bouquet from my rejected, spent bloom.
She flipped the reins and guided her steed back across the field. Was it my imagination or did that horse's head nip a little higher, her step prance with more dance? If not the horse, there was no mistaking the glee in the rider atop the festively attired mount.
Despite the very warm fall we enjoyed here in Colorado, and this scene that occurred just weeks ago, my backyard rose bushes promise no more blooms this year. Winter pushes in at last. And yet the scene - and its unspoken message of redemption - lingers.
Where else are others discovering beauty in my daily debris? Valuables from my discards?
How often does God do this with me?
I view myself as a battered, drooping, fading blossom with nothing left to offer. Clip clip! I scissor myself from the vine and toss my wasted being over the fence into the outer regions of uselessness.
And then God comes along, dismounts from his heavenly workings and bends to scoop up - my wasted and weary me-ness - and places me on his very own chariot as a decoration of his faithfulness. Atop his bridle bouquet, I join the real bridal bouquet of his church. Once a people who were not a people. Now, a chosen people. A royal priesthood. A holy nation. God's special possession.
This is the week we give thanks. For life deliveries we've longed for. For life surprises we never imagined. Even for life lessons we'd rather have received in other packaging.
And maybe, for life "litter" where God makes something out of our nothing. Beauty out of our debris.
I delight greatly in the Lord;
my soul rejoices in my God.
For he has clothed me with garments of salvation
and arrayed me in a robe of his righteousness,
as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest,
and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. Isaiah 61:10
Elisa Morgan speaks and writes to equip and encourage others. She is the cohost of Discover the Word. Her books include Hello, Beauty Full, The Beauty of Broken and She Did What She Could. Connect with Elisa @elisa_morgan on Twitter, on Facebook and elisamorganauthor on Instagram.