Some Serious Pruning

Isn’t it funny how a 55º day in early May or mid-October can send us to the sofa with a blanket and a good book, but the same conditions in February are cause to celebrate outside? And if there’s a winter storm on the horizon, it’s all the more reason to get out of the house and enjoy a healthy dose of fresh air and sunshine. After all, who knows how long it will be before we get another nice day?

I’ve been waiting on a reasonably warm weekend to pick up sticks. I live in the woods (or, as Ben once announced in kindergarten, “I live in a big old forest!”), so when I say sticks, I mean twigs, branches, limbs, and what feels like the occasional log scattered around our property. They’re the victims of winter’s war, brutally slain by wind, ice, and wet, heavy snow. My yard is a battlefield, and someone has to clean it up.

So today I slipped on a light jacket and my gardening gloves, plugged into my iPod and set to work. For awhile I’m working with the music, getting into the rhythm of bending over, scooping up as many twigs and branches as I can carry, trekking up to the woods’ edge, and slinging them on top of the existing brush pyramid.

About 20 minutes into my work, this thought appears unbidden: God has been doing some serious pruning here. I start to dwell on that idea for awhile and the correlation to His work in our lives is hard to miss.

We’re promised in the Bible that there will be pruning. Just as He prunes the forest, He will prune His children:

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

Although His purpose is to produce an abundance of fruit in our lives, the pruning process itself is never pleasant. It often happens in the dead of winter, the seasons of our lives that are bitter cold and gray, devoid of color and growth. We hunker down and hope to make it to spring, but sometimes we can’t even see as far as then next warm day, much less to a whole new season of life.

But here’s the most amazing thing about winter… Even when we can’t see signs of life and the ground beneath our feet feels as though it’s frozen solid, God’s at work in us, His Holy Spirit coaxing new growth to the surface in our lives. His creation is stirring below my seemingly dead, limb-strewn lawn, and there is no doubt that this season of winter will end and spring will come. All of creation will glorify the Creator, and fruit blossoms will one day begin to appear.

In the meantime, I take a break from my now tedious chore and poke around under the leaves, looking for signs of growth where I know bulbs are buried in my yard. Sure enough, I find a tiny hyacinth sprout and I can almost smell the sweet fragrance it will share in April. I cover it back up (remembering this week’s winter storm warning), and keep searching until I find four hearty iris shoots. My heart is encouraged and winter storm or not, I know spring is on the way. As my dear friend Debbie often reminds me, “God is faithful.”



Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father;
There is no shadow of turning with Thee;
Thou changest not, Thy compassions, they fail not;
As Thou hast been, Thou forever will be.

Summer and winter and springtime and harvest,
Sun, moon and stars in their courses above
Join with all nature in manifold witness
To Thy great faithfulness, mercy and love.

Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth
Thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide;
Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow,
Blessings all mine, with ten thousand beside!

Great is Thy faithfulness!
Great is Thy faithfulness!
Morning by morning new mercies I see.
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided;
Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me!