This is something I wrote to share at an advent service at Government Street Presbyterian Church on December 21st, 2022. I wanted to share it here. There are personal stories and reflection, and also revelations of how God has worked through my art in the last year. This is how he grows roses in unlikely places.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind. This is the most important commandment. And, equally as important, love your neighbor as yourself. We also know that God is love. All this means that Love is not a one way street. It surrounds all of us. It loops between us and within us and is directed towards God and it comes from God. It is alive and on the move, and boy is Love capable of surprising us.

We’ve heard beautiful and personal reflections this month about the experiences of Hope, Peace and Joy in real life circumstances. It seems to me that the commonality in all these statements has been the element of surprise. It appears that, in real life, God’s hope and peace and joy come in unexpected ways. And love, even with all its pretty heart shaped imagery, is no different. Love, too, can show up where we least expect it, when we are the least prepared. Like joy, love can even feel out of place or inappropriate. Often times love does not come in a pretty package with a bow. Sometimes, love even seems to have a sense of irony.

There are times when God’s plan proves to be a true mystery, when there is so much darkness and pain that we can’t figure out how this could possibly work for good. There are times when we’ve even questioned His presence at all, let alone his love. But when I look back at those times, I can see that—even then—He was there. Even in those very moments of doubt, and pain and darkness, there was the silver lining of God’s love; the glimmer of light in the dark night reminding us that his Love reaches further and deeper than we can even take our imaginations. His tenderness is beyond our comprehension.

My sister shared with me this weekend a quote that said something about how our God is not the God of I told you so…. He’s a God of … Come here. I’ll keep you safe. I’ll keep you warm. I have more for you. Trust me. I will never leave you. Do not fear. I will help you. And most of all, he is a God of “I Love You”.

While I have not ever heard him say to me “ I told you so” in retrospect, he has told me things, and sometimes, what he has told me, has seemed ironic or contrary to anything I would have chosen on my own. In the work I do as an artist, He guides me towards certain topics he wants me to work within. I try to keep a rule with myself as I create art. I try not to question the inspiration that lands on my heart, and instead, I try to just lean in with belief, even if it doesn’t make sense to me right away.

Love has certainly been a cornerstone topic for me. Within this last year He has drawn my attention towards roses… I felt that he was asking me to paint roses, a symbol of love, and so I did. I incorporated the imagery of a blooming rose on its stem into several of my paintings, sometimes, ironically, without proper relevance or scale to the rest of the composition. At times, it seemed like an odd place for a rose, but I knew this element was not ironic. Because our God is not a God of irony. He is not a God of boastful, snarky comments like “I told you so”. He does not make mistakes and he does not misspeak. He is a God of goodness and truth, of purpose and plan. And, at the end of every day, he is a God of Love.

Sometimes I have to stop myself from exclaiming “How ironic!” when something cool and crazy takes place. But honestly I don’t believe in irony. So I don’t let myself say that. I believe that when something seems wildly unlikely but oddly relevant at the same time— that is God at work—that is God growing lovely roses in muddy places.

13 years ago, December 12, 2009, Robert and I stood right here where I am standing and started our life together. We sang my favorite Christmas hymn, “O Come All Ye Faithful" with our nearest and dearest, but it was also as if that song was calling on all of us in the sanctuary. As if God was saying, “Come on all you faithful people, we are about to celebrate this couple in the most unexpected way you’ve ever done this!”. Because outside of those doors, as we said our vows, around the 4th or 5th inch of rain was landing on Mobile. And another 4 or so inches would come down throughout the night on my parents backyard, where reception tables stood in the kind of soggy mud you’d find on a river bank in the Delta. All that rain did more than just water damage; you name it, and it went wrong. To the point that we had nothing left to do but pull on rain boots and dance in the mess. And so we did. We celebrated that night… until the wee hours! Love was about all that was left to focus on. Not only the love between the two of us, but the love of our family and friends who braved that nasty night with a tall drink and a lot of laughs. But the truth is, love was the whole reason we were there anyway! Was it ironic that our wedding ended up that way? That night there was a perfect rose, in the middle of the muddiest party you’ve seen since Woodstock; a most unlikely and undesirable circumstance for a traditional southern wedding, but nevertheless, a beautiful—and might I add FUN—night celebrating Love.

A few years later, we were having our first child. Now, I don’t know about y’all, but before I had kids, I kinda thought all newborns looked the same. I guess I expected a slimy, swollen baby to be born, and that I’d get to know this person later on, once they started growing hair and eye lashes. But when I looked into our wailing 9 pound baby girl’s face, something felt familiar. I somehow knew her like I’d known her all my life, and at the same time, I was introducing myself to her. And I soothed her cries as if I actually knew what I was doing. This little rose bud introduced me to a new kind of love, the boundless unconditional love of a mother. I couldn’t believe that she was ours. I felt blessed —for a literal lack of any better word. A true blessing in my arms. Looking at her brand new face was like looking into the love of God even amidst the hospital room hustle and the pain and discomfort I was feeling; amidst what seemed to be the destruction of my own body, this little pink rose rested on my beating chest.

If I believed in irony, I would say that childbirth is ironic. But I don’t. I believe in God’s tender love sprouting roses in painful, messy places.

Another time the unlikely rose appeared, it sprouted from grief. If you’ve experienced loss, you are aware of that seemingly ironic sensation, the overwhelming presence of Love in loss. Someone told me that grief is the experience of having love… just not the person to whom you would have expressed it. Having lost that person, we are left with a pile of love and no place to put it. And that feels confusing, disorienting, frightening and overwhelming. In my experience with grief, when my dad died just two years ago this month, I witnessed God’s Love come in tight and close. As loss pulled the rug out from under me, I looked up and reached for the only thing I knew would catch me. I reached for God’s Love, and I pulled it closer to me than I ever had. I learned to wrap myself in it and believe in those promises he makes when He says he will never leave us, when he asks for our right hand and our trust. When he says I will help you. When He says, I love you.

Jesus said, “Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted.” (Matthew 5:4)

Blessed are those who mourn? Isn’t that irony? It’s easy to pull the pity card, and stomp our feet when we are faced with loss, when someone we love is snatched away. But Jesus is saying we are blessed to know this pain. Once again we are tempted to just label that as irony, an unlikely pairing of words, a shadow too dark for a rose like that to grow. But it’s not irony. This is Jesus teaching us of his Father’s far reaching love. He’s saying that God can grow roses smack dab in the middle of our grief. He will drape us in his comfort and meet us right where we need Him most; a warm light in the unbearable darkness.

I say this because I know it is true. In my grief, God reached into my heart, and He told me so. He said “Do not fear, I will help you.” And that is a blessing in this broken world where death is a fact of life. Not if but when death comes, he will be there to comfort the broken hearted. And in that way, we will be blessed.

And He did help me. He showed me how to grow roses from grief. And being the obedient painter, I followed those quiet inspirations as he left them on my heart. He pulled my attention towards His own creations. I started slowly and abstractly at first, horizontal lines rendered landscape visions giving me a sense of inquisition that made me want to study this natural subject further. Within the views just outside my door, around the bay and out in the open air, up in the delta and from the highest and clearest point on Spring Hill, I experienced wonder like I’d never known. God helped me; He led me to look up to the ever present beauty that surrounds me every single day; His glorious gifts of creation: the outstretching light soaked fields, the glimmering surface of the bay, the silver lined clouds and the birds that soar between them. Suddenly, it was as if God’s enormous and magnificent love was everywhere, surrounding me, ever present and never failing. He was right, this would never leave me. Right in the middle of the most pain my heart had known, was an unlikely celebration of Love. I’ve been surrounding myself in that Love ever since. Within these last two years, I’ve painted hundreds of paintings celebrating creation; vibrant roses that sprouted from the darkness of grief.

God’s love is not ironic. It is simply good. And it comes in forms and at times when we wouldn’t expect it to come. Love in the flesh, the Rose of Sharon himself, was born in a most unlikely setting. The angels sang and the world rejoiced despite the ironic circumstances. The King of Kings, the Prince of Peace, the Greatest Gift the world has ever known came to us in a barn surround by the cooing sounds of animals. Ironic? I think not.

Because there is no irony in God’s love, and there is no place beyond his loving light's reach. Watch and see, as he grows roses in unlikely places.