Pruning hurts.

A lesson I've learned from gardening...

The most fruitful plants are the ones that I pay the most attention to.  They are the seedlings that I dig up from the dirt they have settled in and then I move them to wider spaces where they can spread out their roots. They are the vines with the leaves that I trim back carefully, making room for new branches to sprout.  They are the stalks from which I pull the fruit just as soon as it is ripened, clearing space for more fruit to grow.  They are the bushes that I allow to get buried in blankets of snow in the winter, because I know that they will come back to life in the warmth of late spring.

Cultivation.

What a terrifying thing to be uprooted and moved to an entirely new territory. How painful to be cut and trimmed.  What a shock to have good fruit pulled away from the arms that carried it.  How very cold and lonely and unpredictable the long season of winter can be.

Oh, my life.  I am that garden.  

When Jesus talks about being the Vine from which we grow, He explains the Father's cultivation process.  "He cuts off every branch in Me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit He prunes so that it will be even more fruitful," (John 15:2 NIV).  

For years, I read that verse but never paid much attention to the word, "prunes." It seemed so safe. 

Then, last year, we had the craziest tomato plants in our vegetable garden.  From a $0.30 packet of seeds, these vibrant plants grew to be taller than me (I know--I'm not particularly lofty in stature--but they were taller, still!), and they went on to produce so many pounds of fruit that we had to remove perfectly good branches again and again, just to keep the stalks from collapsing!  In a matter of weeks, we collected well over 300 pounds of tomatoes from only a handful of plants.  It was incredible.  

We had to do a great deal of pruning.  Cutting off branches and leaves--even flourishing ones--to make room for more fruit to grow. For the good of the plants.  For the good of the harvest.

As it turns out, pruning hurts. The cost is high, but the gain is exponentially higher.

Jesus says, "I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from Me you can do nothing," (John 15:5).  He invites us into a life that produces beautiful fruit.  When we remain in Him. When we rest in His love. When we listen to His Words.  When we hope in His promises. When we trust Him for our very breath and for every step we take.  When He prunes us.  Because He knows so much more than we can see.  

Following Jesus costs our very life, but the life we gain is so much greater.  "I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord," (Philippians 3:8).

A beautiful friend sent me this message while I was in the hospital a few weeks ago:

"I was looking at my rose bush that I pruned back--cut back to almost nothing back in June--and praying for you--and seeing this afternoon how it blooms on tall, healthy, green stalks.  Jesus has cut things out of my life, but He has brought beauty.  He has taken away, but He has given.  He has sustained me as He will sustain you.  And there will be so much beauty.  I know it."

And here is what she brought to me, from that very bush:

Pruning hurts.  But the result is more beautiful than I ever could have imagined.  

So, in the arms of the wise and faithful and ever-so-loving Gardener, I will remain.  And I choose joy.