Tender of Roses

Beloved, lovely roses: gift of God and lover’s flower, Spread your colored petals and cradle tender showers. While admiring the blossoms with their beauty to behold, Ought we not to know the Tender of such lovely garden groves? For He lovingly and thoughtfully wields His pruning shears To cut away the stems of old for fuller future years. He cultivates and feeds them. He attends them as a Father Looking daily to their needs; so faithfully He waters. From the dawn of morning dew until the setting sun arrays Caring always for His own until that great appointed day… When the Gardener comes to claim each one the earth held as its own. He gently picks it at its peak and for His pleasure takes it home. As God did one glorious morning, when the Perfect Rose had bloomed. He rolled away the stone and met with Mary at the tomb. There the sweetest Rose of Sharon rose that we die not alone. But be gathered for a garden grove, surrounding heaven's throne.