MN Landscape Arboretum
July 21, 2023

Come fall, my kitchen will be overflowing with pots of flowers – my rescue attempt to push the cold of winter away for a few more days. Yearly, I go through this same ritual . . . trying to keep my flowers blooming just a little longer.

I am a rescuer by nature. As I pastored small churches in rural Minnesota, I was convinced that churches in a spiral of death, had life in them. It’s written into my DNA to encourage the life force, whether it is a plant staving off the cold and snow of a winter day in mid fall; A church giving up before their work is done –  Or a person  ready to give up on life. 

I was in the midst of failure, poverty and despair when God rescued me. I couldn’t keep a dying marriage from failing. My rescue attempts were futile. But God’s rescue of me was real. I look back on that time in my life as one of grace. God’s love and care was greater than I believed possible. And while I constantly condemned myself – I found encouragement in some of the most unusual ways. One day, while doing some work in the church library, I came across a book, whose words spoke to my heart. The author wrote, “When you refuse to forgive yourself, you are refusing to forgive a child of God and that is wrong.” I was started by the power of that statement.

As I think of my fall flower rescue efforts, I realize this is how God sees each of us, when we are about to give up on ourselves. God sees the beauty in us and wants us to know that we are God’s beloved children. We are God’s precious children – Loved more abundantly than we can imagine.

“God rescued me out of the miry pit, out of the mud and clay; God set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm footing.” Psalm 40:2 REB

*A version of this post was previously published as God’s Saving Grace, October 27, 2017.