Radical Pruning



Tree before storm

 The last storm took one half of a tree down in our yard.  It wasn't the prettiest of trees nor the most healthy or obviously, the strongest.  But it was very pleasant to focus on from my window and had a limb low enough to hang a bird feeder on.  Planted to one side of the pool, it lost enough leaves to be a menace to the pool cleaning chores, yet the odd shape was appealing to the eye.  My eye anyway.

My husband cut up the downed half tree and remaining half, but the stumps wouldn't bulge.  I found another tree limb suitable to hang the feeder located in another part of the yard.  The stumps look desolate and sad and the backyard misses the shade.  The birds miss it more.  They keep flying around the stumps as if not quite believing their shelter and food source is really gone.  It's as though, if they go one more time, things will be different and they will be fed as always, finding a limb to rest on inbetween feasting on the swinging lunch bar. As it is, they sing out in high pitched cries of disappointment and frustration.

Sometimes I am that bird.  I go to God's Word every morning and I feed and feel nourished and comforted.  Then that morning comes when I read and my world is rocked and I find myself tetering on the brink of something fearsome.  Have I ever read this message before?  Why did I not understand it as it seems to be taking my very breath now?

Sometimes I think...I know...that God is pruning me, cutting away the parts of me that hinder my growth, my relationship with Him...and while I am thankful for His care, this pruning, this cutting away can be painful.  Sometimes I can hardly hold up, I am so weary.  But my heart knows that He is always there, opening other doors, keeping me hungry for new opportunities to serve Him.  He is always there and will give me what I need.  I am blessed to be pruned.

John 15:5-6 "I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me, and I in him, he bears much fruit; for apart from Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch, and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned."

Our tree needed a serious, radical pruning.  It came at a cost.  But as persistent as these birds be in flitting back and forth to the unsightly stumps, I am confident they will find their familiar feeder, equipped with nourishment, and all they need do is fly in a different direction.