Pruning

Fern-like rowan tree leaves, tingeing with hints of yellowing as summer segues into autumn. The diminutive tree pushes weak shoulders against towering larch and majestic Norwegian elm.

Bending branches sway as tiny birds bob in and out, seeking shelter, nibbling berries which are colouring up now as leaves fade. Garishly blushing bunches of orange berries flash temptation and yet within them lurks something sour. Birds peck or gorge on what, for me, would turn my stomach and make me sick.

A twisting tangle of trunks rise from the root – unpruned, undirected, aimless and often weak. Were a skilled gardener to saw and clip and prune the rowan tree, directing its growth into one or two trunks, then they might be strong and well-aimed, able to reach the sunlight and flourish in that space uniquely its own.

Life draws us into doing many good things, but we can miss the best. Like Mary and Martha. The good things, like the berries on those weak branches, may nourish. But be willing to be pruned by a Gardener, and the one or two special talents which God has uniquely gifted you with can produce sweeter fruit, with no poisonous aftertaste, in greater abundance to feed even more, deeply satisfying  hungers perhaps as yet unrecognised.

Pruning is painful but today I offer myself to the Gardener. Prune me – not just the intrinsic me, but the extrinsic activities which steal time, precious time.

Expect the Unexpected

I thought I would be going to my Pilates class this morning, but received an email last night indicating we are done now until after Easter. So instead, this morning, I went alone round the old familiar dog walk trail behind ‘Jock’s’. 

A noisy, squawking flock of geese circled over the farm nearby. They weren’t travelling in their usual flexible V shape, just circling and communicating to each other. Unusual, I thought.

Suddenly a deer broke cover and leapt across the path. Gosh, Dusty would have responded like a shot in her old glory days. There was just me there today, though, noticing the grace and beauty of the roe deer as it bounded deeper into the woods. 

Coming home, I discovered that our B&B guests who were due to be here for six days had been moved on to Thurso by their company, so sheets were in the wash and we were re-calculating our week. Then we got an email saying replacement guys were coming for the other five nights of that booking. Up to remake the beds and ready the room.

Expect the unexpected. That’s always my attitude when travelling and I guess as life is a journey, too, it should be my attitude every day.

We’re coming up to Easter, and I’ve been reading the Easter story this morning. Although Jesus had advised the disciples that he would rise again on the third day, nobody expected it. The women who went to the tomb on the Sunday morning expected to find the mangled, dead body of the leader they loved and had followed all over Israel. They had the herbs and spices and expected to be tenderly washing and caring for Jesus’ body. 

They were so unprepared for a resurrection that Mary asked the ‘gardener’ who had taken away the body. Of course, the gardener was Jesus, and Mary was the first to encounter him and then race off to share the good news – the staggering news – the completely unexpected news – that Jesus, who had died a humiliating, agonising, very public death on the Friday, had risen and was walking around in a brand new, resurrection body.

Expect the unexpected. I wasn’t expecting an encounter with God the night he came in power and love and overwhelmed and transformed me. 

As I go out today, I want to be open and alert for the unexpected. Ours is a God of surprises.

The Hope of Spring

The weather is so perfect that both Don and I have been outside weeding the vegetable patch. The annual promise of delicious produce from our garden enticed us out and encouraged us to dig and dig. 

We do this every year. And most years, we are disappointed with the harvest. We enjoy some things fairly routinely – good lettuce and spinach, rasps and black currants, but usually we fail miserably with carrots, brassicas, and even potatoes. 

Sometimes we blame the weather. Too wet. Too cold. Too windy. Sometimes we don’t have time to weed and feed. Sometimes we blame the soil. Too thin. Too rocky. 

Could it be the gardeners?

I am so grateful that God is my spiritual gardener, and that he can give me just the right kind of spiritual food, the right amount of water, and the right amount of sunshine, if only I will linger long enough in his garden every day and soak it in. 

It’s the only way I can bear fruit. My prayer is that I will slow down on the activities, and increase my time resting in his presence and soaking in his Son.

Snowdrops

Is there a flower more exquisite than a snowdrop? Open to debate, and I myself might even dispute that claim, but right now, in mid-February, with most of the Scottish landscape a shade of brown or grey, the cheery white snowdrops make me smile. Just when it seemed like winter might go on forever, suddenly there they are, reminding me that spring is just around the corner.

They form bright splashes of white on the lawn and in the flower beds, but close up, there is so much more to them than just a white splash. There is a delicate little bridge of spring green on the outer scalloped edge of the central trumpet. And inside the trumpet! Three heart-shaped designs, the shoulders of the hearts corresponding to the scallops, and the points reaching into the centre of the flower, with its delicate little orange stamens. The green is not a solid block of color, either, but is formed of thin striped threads of green and white. Exquisite.

And the snowdrops come up, year after year, without my remembering even where the wee bulbs are planted. Each year they multiply. Because of my rather hap-hazard gardening efforts, there are always some which have been dug up and scattered in surprising new places, quite unintentionally.

Maybe I am a hap-hazard gardener, but God certainly isn’t. These wee treasures didn’t just happen. Somebody designed them. Somebody who is a creative genius. And he looked at the snowdrop, and he saw that it was good.

And he smiled as he thought of the pleasure it would give me today. What an amazing attention to detail and to the seemingly insignificant.

Isn’t God just amazingly wonderful?