"Your thorns are the best part of you." - Marianne Moore

I am beginning to appreciate the beauty of my own imperfections. When viewed through the magnifying glass of high expectations held by self as well as others our thorns may seem horrendously hideous.Yet when viewed close up by the natural eye it is the magnificent uniqueness of our individual thorns that make us who we are. The rose would not be the flower that it is without it's protective thorns running up and down its spine. It is these prickly and unpredictable elements that weed out those who can and do appreciate us in our completely imperfect and flawed humanness from those who find the challenge and pain of the thorns too much to bear. Why should we hide our thorns, they can only cause more pain, more unhappiness when we wrap them underneath deceptively pretty tissue paper?It is the thorns that show us the depth of the connections we make with those willing to have have their fingers pricked occasionally in order to enjoy the sweet smell of the flower of friendship.