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Pruning
February is the month for pruning your roses if you live in central Texas. Now, I myself have a black thumb, and I don't know very much about gardening of any kind. But, this year our family has decided to start a garden of our own. It has been a big undertaking already and we don't have anything in the ground except potatoes. Needless to say I have been gathering as much information as I can about gardening, so today I listened to Mr. and Mrs. Lantham, caretakers of the gardens at the Earle-Harrison House and Pape Gardens c. 1858, speak on the subject of gardening. One of the many things they discussed was the art of pruning. WHAT IS IT, AND WHY DO IT? Pruning is the gardeners term for cutting or trimming back a plant, usually in the early spring, to help increase the plant's production, whether it be flowers or fruit. During the presentation they brought in an absolutely gorgeous rose bush. Then to my shock and amazement, they proceeded to cut off almost all of the stems (or branches ?) including the ones bearing the beautiful roses. The once beautiful plant was reduced to four scraggly looking stumps, bear of any flowers or leaves! Well, as easy as it is for me to kill any kind of plant, I was sure that rose was dead. The Lanthams assured us, however, that in fact they had helped that rose. You see when a plant produces to many stems, and too many leaves, it spends all of it's energy trying to sustain and grow them. By pruning those stems away, we give the plant a chance to redirect it's energy and nourishment to the production of fruit and beautiful flourishing blossoms. If you prune back your roses at the beginning of the growing season, they will produce more beautiful and plentiful blossoms. Now, not every plant must be pruned this way, but if your bushes aren't flowering like they once did, or your vines and fruit trees are not yielding like the should, it may be time for pruning. Another form of pruning is called "dead-heading." This is simply the removal of any dead or spent blossoms so that new ones can grow. It can also mean harvesting of the fruit that is ready even though you may not be able to use it all, so that they don't continue to sap the nourishment from your plant. When you finish pruning your plants, the scraps can make excellent compost. This in turn can be used to nourish all the plants in your garden, or to start a new plant altogether. One note of caution, don't compost the scraps from rose pruning, the branches have thorns, and they have a way of pricking you when you are working with your compost. THE MASTER GARDENER This real life application is a perfect mirror of how God cares for us. The Bible is rich with analogies and parables related to plant life, but it is never a bad idea to look again at His creation and what it can teach us, not only about God and His character, but about ourselves as well. It is Gods will for each of us to produce fruit . I am not just talking about spiritual fruit, but something more tangible as well. Our fruit needs to be obvious to the world, so that others may judge us accordingly. This has nothing to do with family size either, but rather that our good works which spring from the love in our hearts might be felt by those around us on a day to day basis. I have heard the story many times of someone having been taken through tremendous hardship, questioning Gods loving nature in their struggles, and then coming forth with an incredible depth of relationship with God, tremendous blessings , and bearing an enormous amount of fruit. The Bible has many such accounts, Abraham, Moses, Peter, and of course Job. That is how God sometimes deals with us. He prunes away all of the things, worries, and relationships that are sapping our time and energy, and making it impossible for us to produce good fruit. Sometimes things seem to be falling apart or spiraling out of control. This is especially true when there is a serious illness or injury, destruction of property, or the loss of a job involved. I am not saying that God afflicts us with hardship (I don't believe that it has ever been God's will that man should suffer the way we often do, but there is sin in the world, and our enemy does will for us to suffer), but rather, that He takes the things that Satan meant for evil, and uses them for our greater good. In essence, the circumstances of life become the pruning sheers in God's hand. For some this is a very painful and traumatic experience, and their lives may look destroyed from the outside, (remember what I thought about the rose bush after it's trimming?) but what is impossible with man, is possible with God. In His wisdom He is bringing new life to that individual. But, just as the rose bush doesn't instantly produce flowers, but rather draws on the rain and sunshine that the Lord provides, and slowly comes into bloom, lives take time to change, and they must be nourished by Gods hand before they can produce the beautiful and abundant fruit God has planned for them. Others may never require that kind of pruning. For many, it is a continuing process of dead-heading and snipping off stray branches. Small corrections in the direction of growth that their lives are taking. But we can be assured, that pruning is necessary for all of us, and we can be encouraged that what seems like adversity is often the pruning that we need to flourish. WHAT ABOUT THE COMPOST? I encourage you to look at your life and see what kind of fruit you are bearing. Is it plentiful or few? Is it ripe or is it beginning to spoil? Is it green and in need of more nourishment? Do you have so many branches, that your fruit is small, or non existent? Perhaps it is time for a pruning. There is no better time to pray and ask God to begin to snip away the dead blossoms than right now. Use what you trim from your own life to nourish those around you, or to lead someone new to the Lord. Remember to look carefully at what you cut from your heart, and burn off any branches with thorns of bitterness or resentment. Put your life in the hands of the master Gardener, and you will be bursting into bloom sooner then you might expect. We need articles, poetry and
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