Overflow

FLOWERS FROM "FERTILIZER"
I frequently wheel through neighborhoods on my laid-back trike getting my exercise and some relaxed thinking time.  An interesting thought has occurred to me as I often have gotten wonderful quick whiffs of flowers or nasty smelling fertilizers--the stinky stuff that is animal waste, and yet fertile with possibilities for nurturing plants that produce fragrant blooms.  It often happens in moving along that the smell of one is suddenly replaced with the smell of the other.  
Our lives are sometimes like that. We can make bad choices, life can throw obstacles in our path, and our life can smell like fertilizer.  But if we will do what the Bible exhorts us in James chapter 1, and let God work in us through those times, we can eventually experience beauty and fragrance resulting from it.  Isaiah 61:3 is a prophecy about Jesus, and says that He will do just that sort of thing in us.  "To grant those who mourn in Zion, Giving them a garland instead of ashes, The oil of gladness instead of mourning, The mantle of praise instead of a spirit of fainting. So they will be called oaks of righteousness, The planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified."