I discover that the lilac stem is so tough and so thick that it’s nearly impossible for those stems to draw up their life-sustaining nutrients in a vase. They wilt and expire within one day.

I learn that you must crush and split the stems to soften them and provide many points of entry for the lilacs to suck up all the water.

I’m standing in my kitchen, damaging those stems–literally breaking them open with a knife–(in order to save them!), and I realize the tender hand of God in my own heart that crushes in order to provide a special and rapid access to what I really need: Him, the Living Water.

The tough, thick me softens so I can get what I’ve wanted and needed all along. This was the crushing and cutting that saved me.