I was looking back through my journal yesterday and went to March 13, 2013, almost a year ago. I was reflecting on pruning, which we do in our garden each fall and winter. Pruning is the act of cutting away limbs, leaves and flowers, reshaping a plant so it grows stronger and bears more fruit. When a plant is pruned severely, it spends time resting and recovering from it’s surgery before beginning to grow again. When it does grow, new leaves and branches clothe once naked stems until it feels properly dressed again. Then it adds its jewelry accents – vibrantly colored flowers so alluring they can take my breath away.

In our garden pruning is most visible with our roses. Our half acre has close to 250 rose bushes planted all around – in designated rose gardens, along picket fences, around the circular driveway. But that day last March I’d stopped by one of our climbing roses, “Lady Banks”. Her clusters of small white roses already bloomed abundantly on her cascading stems. Keith had pruned all the roses earlier than usual – in November rather than January – so the blooms were much more abundant for March compared to other years.

I looked closely and noticed that a cluster had bloomed near the tip where a stem had been cut back. It was almost as if the energy that would have flowed to the end of the old stem had no where to go, so it all went into bearing this delightfully fragrant cluster of flowers. Along the rest of the plant new stems grew also, each one tipped with swelling buds that would soon burst into bloom. It made me wonder what would happen once we started feeding it!

So today I continued reflecting on pruning. I thought about how my personal life had been pruned as God the Master Gardener wielded the clippers. Last year marked 20 years since the onset of Multiple Sclerosis – a most severe pruning that grew new fruit in my life that would never have happened without it. God showed me how He was shaping me to look more like His Son, Jesus, through that pruning. (And isn’t that God’s ultimate purpose with all the pruning He does in our lives?)

I also thought about the emergency appendectomy I had last January – a pruning that came in the knick of time. The appendix had gone gangrene and would have burst if it hadn’t been pruned away when it was. Recovering from surgery caused me to curtail some of my activities. That reminded me that sometimes I need to prune away non-essentials so my energy can go toward what matters most.

What matters most? Spending time with my Lord and Savior. Without abiding in Him and His abiding presence in me, what grows and shows in my life won’t be lovely or of lasting value. And without His hand guiding this pruning process, I become weak and fruitless, not the fragrant offering I want to be.

But here it is one year after my most recent season of pruning and I’m still resting, waiting for the flush of floral abundance and fruit to adorn my life again. I know the wait hasn’t been wasted time. I’ve learned to express gratitude to the Lord in all things rather than grumbling and complaining (ok, I’m still learning this). My trust in the Giver of every good gift, even when the gift doesn’t seem good at first, is deepening. He is God, not I. He is Lord over all and is working out His good purposes – His kingdom purposes – and my purpose is to live for Him. He is for me, not against me! If He did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for me – for us all – He deserves my absolute trust. And I’m learning more and more that the joy of the Lord blooms brightly in my gratitude and trust.

So I wait. After all it is still winter, the time of rest. And this I have also learned: You can’t rush winter, for winter won’t be rushed. Springtime will arrive and I’m hopeful that my energy will be revived. But maybe, just maybe the floral abundance is already adorning my life. Maybe it just looks different than what I’m expecting it to be.