The Rose Within

A certain woman planted a rose
and watered it faithfully,
and before it blossomed,
she examined it.
She saw the bud that would soon
blossom and also the thorns.

And she thought,
"How can any beautiful flower
come from a plant burdened with
so many sharp thorns?"
Saddened by this thought,
she neglected to water the rose,
and before it was ready to
bloom, it died.

So it is with many people.
Within every soul there is a rose.
The God-like qualities planted in us
at birth grow amid the thorns of our faults.
Many of us look at ourselves and
see only the thorns, the defects.

We despair, thinking that nothing
good can possibly come from us.
We neglect to water the good within us,
and eventually it dies.
We never realize our potential.

Some people do not see
the rose within themselves;
someone else must show it to them.
One of the greatest gifts a person
can possess is to be able to
reach past the thorns
and find the rose within others.

This is the characteristic of love,
to look at a person, and knowing his faults,
recognize the nobility in his soul,
and help him realize that he can
overcome his faults.

If we show him the rose,
he will conquer the thorns.
Then will he blossom,
blooming forth thirty, sixty,
a hundred-fold as it is given to him.

Our duty in this world is to help others
by showing them their roses
and not their thorns.
Only then can we achieve
the love we should feel for each other;
only then can we bloom in our own garden.
 ©David Griffith ~

*