Whoever said, “Life is not a bed a roses” was 100 percent wrong. Life is exactly like a bed of roses. Sometimes, life is beautiful, soft, and full of fragrance. At other times, life is itchy stems and painful thorns. Like roses, we try only to allow people to see the beautiful petals above the vase, not the pain below the surface.

Most people start developing plans (or should I say dreams?) during or before high school. Many never attain those dreams. Life touring the world as a successful singer ends up being a life selling insurance. Future doctors and lawyers find themselves 40 years old with a manager’s job at the local chain store. There is nothing wrong with what they are doing, but things did not come out as planned.

Others find themselves in that corporate office or their voice blaring over the radio, yet feel unfulfilled despite reaching those life goals.

In everyone’s life, with dreams achieved or not, there are rose petal moments, days of joy, and happiness; flickers in time that will resound in our memories long after the hair has turned white.

On the flip side is life inside the vase. Everywhere you turn, there is something to prick you, something that causes pain. Many of us wonder if life will ever experience the enjoyable aroma of the roses. There are billions of people who go through life attempting to display the flower’s vibrant beauty and color, while the pain of the thorns hides from view.

Disappointment comes when our trust lies in what the world offers, and we live to attain its standard for success.

Money is deceitful (Matthew 13:22). Money will lure us into a false sense of security. There is always more money to earn. We thought the grass was greener, but once on the other side of the fence experiencing the “good life,” the emptiness and pain of the thorns of life are still there. The only change is our position within the vase.

Disappointment reigns as broken dreams, false promises, and the pain of being human overwhelm our lives.

When we trust in ourselves, depression will soon follow. None of us are efficient in everything. We all have room for improvement.

Each of us fights with good and evil (Romans 7:14-25), and far too often, we lose the round. Even with our victories, the pain of the circumstances of sin ripples through the rest of our lives. Our sin causes us pain, and often, the sins of others hurt worse. Sin always affects innocent people. If a father spends most of his paycheck at the bar on the way home, the wife and children suffer when the light bill goes unpaid or groceries remain unpurchased. If it happens enough, the lights get turned off; the landlord may evict them. None of those kids spent that money; they are innocent. Dad is the guilty party, and his family is experiencing pain. They are trapped in the vase feeling the pricks, suffering pain.

A broken marriage is an excellent example of trusting in others, bringing disappointment, and trusting in ourselves, bringing depression.

We see the perfect life is not working out as planned and having no place to turn, the fires of depression burn; we fall deeper into the vase away from the roses’ beauty.

We trust whom we marry. After all, there are pledges made to keep this relationship for a lifetime. Five years later, after three years of arguments, a lack of love, and broken promises, divorce court looms. The world will tell you divorce is quick and easy. Go down to the courthouse, sign some papers, go on with your life. However, God made the two one flesh, and the breakup of a marriage has emotional pain equivalent to the physical pain of ripping the flesh apart. The rose stems seem to have grown thousands of thorns that stab for decades. Disappointment and depression rule the day.

Deliverance only comes from God. It is not that the thorns of life will never prick us, but God will make the thorns we do experience more bearable, and He does keep us from a lot of hurt. Isaiah 46:4, “And even to your old age I am he; and even to hoar hairs will I carry you: I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry, and will deliver you.”

God’s deliverance primary blessing is in eternity, as He delivers us from death, by giving us spiritual life. 2 Corinthians 1:10, “Who delivered us from so great a death, and doth deliver: in whom we trust that he will yet deliver us;”

The truth is sometimes the last thing we want to hear, but placing your faith in God puts us on a path of climbing from the bottom of the vase to the top and eventually out to where there is nothing but beauty, wonderful aroma, and tenderness.

Lastly, we must remember the watering can of life’s rose petals only contains faith, faith in God, the roses’ Creator.