For When You feel You Could Never Recover

Near my house is a field of  avocado trees. One day, driving by I was shocked to see the trees had all their branches severely lopped off until there was truly only a 4 to 5 foot stump left and every inch had been sealed over with glaring white paint.

What before was a field of vibrant green, tall and verdant, blowing in the breeze and producing bounty was now a stark view of bare brown dirt and white skeletons dwarfed to a mere fraction of their former size.

Not a single leaf, branch or twig could be seen anywhere.

It was so distressing to see that the owners of the field felt compelled to post a small sign providing a phone number that those concerned for the trees could call and they would explain this drastic procedure.

Beautiful large and strong branches had been violently severed from their only source of life, never to recover.

What remained was completely sealed off - isolated into itself.

Sometimes we go through a season where this mirrors our experience.
The cutting is so deep and so pervasive and prolonged, we feel we may never recover from this. Ever.

Made all the more painful by the sight of the beautiful branches laying severed and lifeless on the ground.  What took large amounts of time, energy and resources to produce, is now lost and dying.

Seemingly a senseless loss.  One can imagine no purpose or meaning to this.

And yet, the wise farmer knows the long term benefit of such outweighs the loss.
Please Lord, let us hear your words and let them sink deep down in.

 1-3 “I am the Real Vine and my Father is the Farmer. He cuts off every branch of me that doesn’t bear grapes. And every branch that is grape-bearing he prunes back so it will bear even more. You are already pruned back by the message I have spoken.

Please Lord, let us hear you.  Sometimes you prune off what is not fruit bearing in our lives. 

But sometimes you prune off even what IS fruit bearing.  It appears senseless and meaningless.  But you do have an end result we cannot see or even imagine right now.

Please help us to keep open and vulnerable and trusting in you.  To let your word still reach my heart.  To not shut you out or harden my heart to you.  To grieve with you and through the tears and loss, know you can bring life from death, light into darkness. 

4 “Live in me. Make your home in me just as I do in you. In the same way that a branch can’t bear grapes by itself but only by being joined to the vine, you can’t bear fruit unless you are joined with me.

Yes, Lord, help me to pursue You and a deeper relationship with you.  Please help me to communicate honestly with you and let your words of hope and comfort in. To know you are with me and will not leave me.  Praise you that anyone, ANYONE can be connected to you through what you have done to die in our place and take away my sins and shame.

5-8 “I am the Vine, you are the branches. When you’re joined with me and I with you, the relation intimate and organic, the harvest is sure to be abundant. Separated, you can’t produce a thing. Anyone who separates from me is deadwood, gathered up and thrown on the bonfire. But if you make yourselves at home with me and my words are at home in you, you can be sure that whatever you ask will be listened to and acted upon. This is how my Father shows who he is—when you produce grapes, when you mature as my disciples.

This is all you ask of me, not to separate myself from you. Not to run away and shut you and others out. Not to give into the rage and pain and despair. To let you hold my hand and hold me in this. 

9-10 “I’ve loved you the way my Father has loved me. Make yourselves at home in my love. If you keep my commands, you’ll remain intimately at home in my love. That’s what I’ve done—kept my Father’s commands and made myself at home in his love.  John 15:1-10 The Message

Yes, Lord Jesus, help me to make my home in your love, to turn my gaze onto your beautiful face and rest in who you are. 

23 Jesus answered, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word. My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.   
John 14:23 Holman

22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness,goodness, faith,[a] 23 gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no law. 24 Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 Since we live by the Spirit, we must also follow the Spirit. 
Galatians 5:22-25 Holman

Who believes what we’ve heard and seen?
    Who would have thought God’s saving power would look like this?

2-6 The servant grew up before God—a scrawny seedling,
    a scrubby plant in a parched field.
There was nothing attractive about him,
    nothing to cause us to take a second look.
He was looked down on and passed over,
    a man who suffered, who knew pain firsthand.
One look at him and people turned away.
    We looked down on him, thought he was scum.
But the fact is, it was our pains he carried—
    our disfigurements, all the things wrong with us.
We thought he brought it on himself,
    that God was punishing him for his own failures.
But it was our sins that did that to him,
    that ripped and tore and crushed him—our sins!
He took the punishment, and that made us whole.
    Through his bruises we get healed.
We’re all like sheep who’ve wandered off and gotten lost.
    We’ve all done our own thing, gone our own way.
And God has piled all our sins, everything we’ve done wrong,
    on him, on him.

Isaiah 53:1-6 The Message

Yes, Lord, you are working in ways I could never see or imagine
In where I only see loss, you see what I cannot
You want to bring me deeper into yourself
Praise you that through your wounding we are made whole
I love you, Lord

The following post by Bonnie Gray was a great comfort to me:

http://www.faithbarista.com/2016/03/why-we-all-need-someone-onewordlent/