Beautiful Death...

 Lunch finished, barefooted, I hop off the porch, to get a couple minutes of fresh air. I just love taking deep breaths of the fresh, crisp, Autumn air. It's just so... rejuvenating!

I skipped through the lawn over to the roses. I stop to smell them every chance I get... Winter is coming so soon, and I'm taking advantage to enjoy the last of the flowers, before they are "sleeping" under a blanket of white.

As I bent to take in their sweet fragrance, and indescribable beauty, I noticed, that the little breeze earlier, had knocked all the petals off the older roses. 'Such a pity', I thought to myself, as I looked at the scattered petals at my feet, 'that these beautiful works of creation must wither and die. That they must pay the penalties of my sin, by giving themselves to die.' 'My sins cause this'... I sighed.

As I looked around me... I seemed to see death everywhere...

Golden, yellow leaves, drifted gracefully to the ground, from a tree nearby...

 The garden almost looked black. Frost had devoured the very life from it. 'So very different it looks now, from just a week ago' I thought.

Something just seemed strangely beautiful about the sightings of my stroll around the house... Yes something very strangely beautiful...

I just couldn't quite place it...

As I went about my Sabbath preparations in the house again, three words kept ringing through my head....

Death...

Sacrifice...

Beauty...

What is it Lord? I asked, as I scrubbed the dishes. 'What is it you're wanting me to see through all this death... as Beautiful?'

Ahh, yes!

I know.

You died for me.

You Sacrificed all heaven for me...

All the comfort and joy, mortal minds can't even fathom it... And you Sacrificed all of it for ME!

Ooh yes, what a beautiful sacrifice, I breathed...

But that wasn't it...

'I want YOU to die as well my child' He whispered.

Hmm...

'Yes, that's called "Death to self"' I thought.

Ahh, but Lord, it seems like nothing, compared to the death you died.

And it is.

But it's what He Sacrificed for. It's what He gave all for. It's why He was bowed down to the ground, with unutterable anguish, that dark night in Gethsemane...

For me to die too... that He might live within me...

Death to self.

An empty vessel..

All of my desires, everything that has to do with ME, is completely just not even apart of my being. Like the rose petals scattered upon the dewy ground. Yes, instead, everything is about HIM.

He rules on the throne, in every situation.

Ooh, beautiful death!

May the soft, and gentle breezes of the Holy Spirit blow upon this rose, that the old petals of self, drop to the ground, wither and die. That Christ may have the very heart of this rose... nothing preventing His entrance, and abiding presence there.

"For to me to live is Christ..

..and to die is gain."