Looking Beyond the Prickles

Today after moving the heifers into the next pasture I was walking back to the tractor and passed one of these bull thistles in bloom.  We try to mow them off when possible, so it doesn't eventually turn into a thistle Christmas tree farm.  The pretty purple blossoms really caught my eye and the first thought that came to my mind was, "How can something so beautiful come from something so undesirable?"  I walked headlong into that spiritual lesson.
I was reminded just yesterday in a conversation with a brother in Christ to pay more attention to what God might be saying to me in my daily time among the cows and His creation.  It was as if the moment I posed the question regarding these thistle blossoms, God wasted no time in seizing the opportunity to answer.  And this is what I got:
The painful, unpleasant, undesirable (insert your own adjective to add to the list) seasons, circumstances (maybe even people) that occupy space in our lives have a way -- when we surrender to Father God -- of bringing forth something beautiful in time.
I thought about the bull thistle a little more, and remembered that it has a taproot.  Taproots are good at penetrating deep in the soil, breaking up hardpan layers as well as bringing up valuable minerals from areas that are inaccessible to more shallow root systems.  It isn't difficult to see the spiritual parallels here either.  If my heart is hard, maybe God in His wisdom would use a spiritual taproot to break through.  And once the root is in, it does its work of bringing up nourishment from the seemingly dormant depths.  If the hardpan becomes penetrable, then a way begins to be made for other roots to grow deeper too.  This means when a drought comes, the whole canopy of plant life has greater reserves to draw from.  The deeper we go in our relationship with God, the better we can weather the storms and trials we face.
I also did a quick search on bull thistles and learned that parts of them are even edible.  You can read more about that at http://www.eattheweeds.com/thistle-touch-me-not-but-add-butter-2/.  If you've ever encountered a bull thistle, you know that they HURT when you brush against them!  And I know the cows don't care to eat them (who could blame them?).  The secret in the method, of course, is removing the spines.
Isn't that how it is in life too?  We bump into (or are bumped by) something painful, and our instinctive reaction is to get away from it so we don't keep feeling pain and discomfort.  But what if we could see that behind the prickly spines there is nourishment and ultimate growth for our soul?  What if we could see that at maturity, beauty will bloom?
I'm being convicted today.  I don't want to fight against the tools God desires to use to transform my heart to be like His, but I think I have been.  The good news is He is always willing to show us the better way, no matter how many times we mess up.  All we have to do is ask.  And, just maybe, stop and smell the...thistles.