An Olive Branch
I recently got a tattoo of an olive branch. Why an olive branch?
The answer is simple, but it runs deep.
In Scripture, olives were never useful in their raw form. They had to be crushed before they could become oil, oil that was used for anointing, healing, light, and consecration. The value was never found in the olive as it was, but in what came after the pressing.
What struck me most is this truth: the crushing always came before the oil.
That reality has felt especially close to home in this season of my life. There have been places where I’ve felt pressed, by disappointment, by waiting, by grief, by unanswered prayers. Seasons I wouldn’t have chosen, stories I never imagined I’d carry. And yet, those have been the very places where the Lord has met me most tenderly. The places where I’ve been stripped of self reliance and invited into deeper dependence on Him.
There is no oil without the crushing first. No refining without pressure. No depth without surrender.
Scripture reminds us of this again and again. In Isaiah 61:3, we see God’s heart so clearly:
“To bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.”
Notice the order. Ashes come before beauty. Mourning comes before joy. The oil follows the hardship, not the other way around.
As Christians, I think we sometimes expect that if we give our lives fully to the Lord, life should feel easier in return. That obedience should equal comfort. That faithfulness should mean smooth sailing. But Scripture never promises that. In fact, it often promises the opposite.
Spiritual growth, maturity, and a deeper dependence on the Lord are rarely formed in seasons where everything goes according to our plan. Those things are shaped and defined in the hard places, the moments of loss, waiting, disappointment, and suffering. And somehow, that’s not a sign that God is absent. It’s often proof that He’s at work.
It is okay to go through hard things. It is okay to suffer. And just because something feels heavy right now does not mean it will feel heavy forever. The pressing is not pointless, it produces something.
Those seasons shape us into better followers of Jesus. They soften us. They make us more compassionate sisters and brothers in Christ, more present parents and friends, more humble leaders, and more trustworthy people, people others can relate to, learn from, and turn to when life feels hard.
Romans 8:18 puts it this way:
“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is going to be revealed to us.”
That’s the heart behind the olive branch. I didn’t get it as a trendy symbol or a passing moment. I got it as a reminder.
A reminder that the hard seasons were not wasted and will not be wasted. That the pressing had a purpose. That God can bring beauty from pressure, purpose from pain, and oil from places that once felt crushing.
Every time I look at it, I remember that the Lord is not finished. He is still working, still refining, still bringing life where things once felt broken.
And how much better is it to live a life that glorifies God in spite of what we’ve walked through and not because everything was handed to us, but because He met us in the middle of the pressing and made something holy out of it?