As I have mentioned before, my husband has a green thumb. Last week I talked about the vegetable garden and fruit trees in our yard. But my husband also likes other trees, flowers, etc. The only thing he doesn’t like as much are bushes, but that is mainly because he thinks snakes could be hiding underneath. So he usually tries to keep the lower branches of the bushes trimmed.

One of my husband’s favorite things to grow are roses. We have several rose bushes in our yard. He might get this from his late mother, as I remember that she enjoyed getting new roses to root.

Some of the roses we have in our yard, we ordered through a catalog. There is one in particular that my husband was especially interested in planting. It is called a Blue Moon rose. The only problem is that it is not blue. Rather it is more on the pink or lavender side.

This prompted a conversation between my husband and me. “People” named this rose blue moon, even though it is not blue. And I don’t know where moon comes into the picture. I guess in general, it does have a nice name. It just doesn’t really fit.

The following day after my husband and I talked about the not-so-blue rose, we were talking about going to the grocery store for fruit. One of the things my husband wanted was grapes. And again the name issue came up. He said that the grapes he wanted were the green ones, but people usually referred to them as white grapes. Again this name came from “people.”

And the same is true for us. People will call us a lot of things. Some of the things they call us might be hurtful or they might make us feel good. Some things they call us might be accurate or they might be way off base. It can be easy to let other people’s words affect us. Hurtful words will bring us down, and nice words will give us a boost.

But what’s important to remember, especially as Christians, is to compare everything to truth. Truth comes from God, What Jesus did for us, and what the Bible says. Who does God say you are? Who are you in Jesus? And what truth can be found in the Bible? Whether the things said about us are good or bad, it is always best to bring them back to truth.