After the Pruning

4 days away from home, 4 days since the pruning----just 4 days, and already the blooms have exploded!  I returned to find a planter full of pleasure!  Those persistent geraniums are covered with bright red and white color and the little mums and petunias are all opened up in the evening sunshine. It's as if
                                                  they are giving glorious praise as their
brilliance shouts beauty and joy!

How could just a little pruning result in this?  Well, I can tell you that it wasn't just the pruning!  It was the sun and the water and the cool of the night that filled the empty spots with abundant flashes of colorful flowers, and it makes me smile!  

Isn't that just the way God works in our lives?  Where there once was emptiness, He fills the heart with hope.  Where there is longing, He gives joy in ways that sustain us while we wait.  Where time has plucked special things out of our midst, He gives grace and colors our lives with the comfort of His truth and His promise.

The Lord is faithful to all His promises and loving toward all He has made.  The Lord upholds all those who fall and lifts up all who are bowed down.  The Lord is near to all who call on Him, to all who call on Him in truth. 
Psalm 145: 13, 18

We don't just flourish because of pruning and pain.  We grow in the strength of the Son and the Living Water of His Spirit, and the cool rest He gives our soul when the heat of trials overwhelm us.   And I give praise for all of it and pray for a countenance that shouts His beauty and glory.  I am a cracked pot, but He fills me with His abundant grace so that I may show His love and grow to His pleasure.

The pruning isn't the taking away of the ones we love, it's the act of teaching us to surrender the tight hold we have on them so that we can trust The One who blessed us with them in the first place.  As we learn to let go, we open ourselves up to the next stage of life and our journey continues as we walk in the presence of the Lord.