Over the last two weeks, I’ve developed a new ritual with my housemates.  At the end of a long day, we convene on the balcony of our second floor apartment that overlooks a small portion of a quaint Hew Haven neighborhood.  One person lights fragrant candles, which provide warmth against the coming darkness.  Another unveils savory treats.  A third configures the chairs such that conversation can flourish.  Then, each in turn reveals her best and worst moments of the day.  Endearingly (if somewhat playfully and youthfully), we’ve come to call this time ‘roses and thorns.’ 

Perhaps not surprisingly, the resulting avenues of our conversation lead in all kinds of directions. Laughter billows into our blanketed space as we recall the moments of grace displayed in our varying spheres of work and play.  We smile at the joy of participating in the delivery of a baby. We giggle about the surprises experienced during an eventful cycling excursion.  We chuckle over the fearless questions posed to an acclaimed research scholar earlier in the afternoon.  All of these gifts have been received in the span of one day, and we feel overwhelmed by the Giver’s benevolence. 

But our upturned grins fade as our merriment collides with life’s starker realities.  The day has also brought some moments of hardship.  A close friend has lost his difficult struggle with cancer.  Relationships that we had hoped would mend are still broken.  Establishing true community is slower and more difficult than we planned.  We are suddenly aware of the evening’s chill as silence replaces our laughter and a weighty, even somber air lingers. 

As much as we all like to live along the paths marked by roses, we know that the prickles and pokes of their thorns come too.  The particulars of our daily experiences reveal what living the Christian life really means.  Here on Earth, we find a mixture of exuberance and goodness, disappointment and sadness.  We glimpse the heights of glory and know that God’s kingdom has broken in, yet we also sink to the depths and yearn for its future fullness that is promised. 

Our comfort, in all of these places, is knowing that we are couched in God’s presence.  In Psalm 139, the psalmist seems keenly aware of the twists and turns of life’s paths, yet affirms God’s unending faithfulness.  The words are reassuring: “Where can I go from your Spirit?  Where can I flee from your presence?  If I go up to the heavens you are there; if I make my bed in the depths you are there.  If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.  If I say, ‘Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,’ even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.”   

Along the varying roads of life, we can expect both roses and thorns, often simultaneously.  Sometimes our trials and tribulations will feel (and be) more real than our joys and triumphs.  But perhaps we can remember, as one friend recently said, that “from the desert of temptation to the garden of resurrection, we find God to be there.”