A Rose in Spring, and Scattering Seeds

A rose in the spring after a rain in our front yard. The color of these roses always stands out to me, so I wanted to make sure it stands out in this photo.

I had mentioned in the About the Photo section of the previous post that I recently took some new photos around our house, and this is one of those. These roses are always good photo subjects, and I decided to give this one a different look. You can read more about that in the About the Photo section of this post below.

This is the first in a series of Around Home in Spring 2025.

Scattering Seeds

Many years ago, we planted four rose bushes along our front porch. One of those still survives today, and that is the one that you can see in the photo above.

One out of four is a 25% success rate, if you do the math. That may not sound like much, but for us it is actually quite good. Keeping plants alive sometimes goes well for us, other times not so much. Just ask the other three rose bushes, except that you can’t ask them because they are not around anymore. But to this one that is still here, he is happy for the 25%. Much better than 0%.

So we plant things, do what we can for them, and let God do the rest. That reminds me of the story about the sower that Jesus told in Matthew 13. The sower threw his seed wherever it would fall. Some of it grew, some of it did not. But he apparently did not worry about it, because all Jesus tells us is that he scattered the seed, not that he tried to get it only in the soil where it would grow.

We might still try to plant our plants where we think they will grow, but we do all the good that we can for all the people that we can, not necessarily worrying about where it will take root. We plant spiritual seeds and let God do the rest. We should not keep a spreadsheet and figure out result percentages. Some of the spiritual seeds that we plant may not grow for many years. We may not even know when they do grow. But that is okay, because it is not all about us, it is about God’s will being done.

God will use us to be a blessing to others as he sees fit. Scatter spiritual seeds by doing the good that you can do, and God will do the rest.

I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So, then, neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. - 1 Corinthians 3:6-7

About the Photo

For this photo, I used a 50mm prime lens, which I have not used in quite a while. I had been using a 35mm prime lens for quite some time, but the 50mm lens is a little different. The longer focal length forces you to compose things a little differently, but it also gives a really strong depth of field. You may remember that I did a whole 50with50 series of 50 photos taken with a 50mm lens.

I also worked with the colors a good bit on this photo. I muted and darkened the greens and yellows quite a bit to keep the focus on the rose. This may not quite be a true-to-life view, but let’s call it art instead.

Photo: Each photo is a single Raw exposure, processed in Darktable
Camera: Sony Alpha A7 II
Lens: Sony FE 50mm f/1.8
ISO: ISO-200
Shutter Speed: 1/750 sec.
Aperture: f/2.8
Focal length: 50mm
Date: May 22, 2025
Location: Williston, Tennessee