I've had "Bleeding Hearts" growing in my garden for as many years as we've been in our house. I love watching the heart shape flowers emerge, quickly grow, then the tear drop descend from its base. God writes majestic poetry in creation. Small illustrative sermons that reveal volumes about His character, His ways, His love and His purposes. I think it's why I'm enamored by the words and paintings of Lillias Trotter so much. Have you ever noticed that if you pluck one of those bleeding heart flowers and tear it open, there is another heart tucked within, firmly attached to the apparent tear drop that descends outwardly?
It's what I'd love my own heart to be like. That when the Spirit of Jesus in me grieves, His tears break through my own and I weep because He weeps. It's interesting...the Lord created the nectar of that flower to be so sweet, that timid and easily frightened hummingbirds find strength when they drink of it.
2 Cor. 4:7a "But we have this treasure in earthen vessels..."
"They tell me I must bruise
The rose's leaf,
Ere I can keep and use
Its fragrance brief.
They tell me I must break
The skylark's heart,
Ere her cage song will make
The silence start.
They tell me love must bleed,
And friendship weep,
Ere in my deepest need
I touch that deep.
Must it be always so
With precious things?
Must they be bruised and go
With beaten wings?
Ah, yes! by crushing days,
By caging nights, by scar
Of thorn and stony ways,
These blessings are!"
- From Edith Schaeffer in her book "Affliction"
