Pruning My Heart to Save My Soul

How the metaphor of pruning helps us make sense of the mess of our lives

 “Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that continues to bear fruit, He [repeatedly] prunes, so that it will bear more fruit [even richer and finer fruit]. Pruning is vitally important for us to grow in our walk with God.” John 15:2 (AMP), 

First, lets get on the same page about what it means to be pruned. Here’s the definition:

Definition: to prune

verb

gerund or present participle: pruning

trim (a tree, shrub, or bush) by cutting away dead or overgrown branches or stems especially to increase fruitfulness and growth.

I got pruned.

Let me say it again more for myself, perhaps, than for you: I got pruned.

The metaphor of pruning is helping me understand the messiness of the last three years: personally, my relational world , physically, vocationally and spiritually.

We moved to re-set our live in the Fall of 2019 after a flowering ministry: pioneering a new ministry called, “Potter’s Inn,” writing several books, traveling internationally speaking and teaching; leading a staff of twelve at our own retreat in Colorado on a 35 acre ranch and more. We loved our life in Colorado. But, come to find out, I got older with every decade I was there. Funny how that happens.

After a time of discernment and gaining clarity of our next step, we would uproot and change our lives. We moved across the continent because of some sort of primal pull that had erupted in me to return “home.”  I felt compelled to return to my roots—be with my siblings and give Gwen the opportunity to live life with her siblings.  We had good intentions. We had hope. We felt “led”. It all looked good, at first.

I did not relocate to get pruned. I didn’t think this was a part of the deal.

No sooner did we get to Charlotte to do our reset, than my oldest sister went into a medical crisis. While the moving truck arrived to unpack us in our new house, I had to go out and find an assisted living home for my sister to move into. From day one, it was hard. She died a few months later.  The “hard” continued.

Then, COVID hit. The whole world was being pruned it seemed. It now seems that our little world—Earth was being pruned:  Politically.  Spiritually. Economically. Relationally.  Climate change. Church life.  Perhaps in nearly every way one might imagine, we were all being: cut back; trimmed; thinned out; snipped; hacked; chopped.

The metaphor of pruning helped me best understand what was happening both in me and around me. Every where I looked; every place I looked; everything inside of my heart was being pruned. In nearly every aspect of my life, I felt the cutting back and the cutting off:

1.     Health wise—I got sick. I wasn’t well. This required two surgeries and a long recovery. A deep, unexpected and unwanted physical pruning.

2.     Relationship wise—I left my life time friends; a staff which I loved and a life I had built to re-set and re-position my life.  To find new friends and establish new community gets more challenging as we age. Our political divide has divided us as friends and family. It’s not the same—perhaps it never will be the way it was.

3.     Vocation wise—I was aging. I was tired. I needed to re-set and scale back. I wanted to reposition—not retire. But had no idea that I needed a longer time to allow the water to settle inside so I could gain clarity.

4.     Emotion wise—I felt numb; in some sort of grief over so much change and loss. I admitted my own exhaustion from it all. When I was so sick I had anxiety for the first time in my life. When I was so alone, I was depressed. When I was disillusioned with our country, church and future, I felt despair for the first time.

5.     Spiritually wise—I felt dark, alone, separated; in a desert and in a wilderness. God seemed far off. I seemed far off. Everyone seemed far off.

My flowering bush of a life—my beautiful soul was clipped branch by branch. It was a deep and massive trimming back to the stump of my soul. When one is pruned; when something valuable is taken—no matter what it is—words are hard to find to express the inner world.  Poets try. Songwriters try.  But, in the end, to be pruned is a hard, wordless experience that can only be understood by looking back to see what has really happened.

I had grown to like my over-grown life, I guess. I don’t think I had the awareness of the thicket of so much overgrowth had taken root in me. As I look back on it all now, I could not tell where the vine was from the collective weeds. My branches were straining out to grab hold of something—Someone that could give meaning to the mess.

Sometimes in life, our hearts need to be pruned in order for our souls to be saved.  This is my narrative now. Perhaps, some of you, know this because of your pruning in the death of a spouse, the loss of a child; the move from one city to another.  Take a look at those five categories I describe above.  In which one have you experienced pruning? What is the result?

We don’t die from being pruned—even if it feels like we are.

We do not die from pruning. Pruning is a necessary process in order for new life to come. It is all a part of what is necessary to really live—to really stay alive and above all—to do this one thing—to bear fruit.

Jesus, and other writers of the Scriptures seemed to love the metaphor of pruning to describe the essential, necessary and indispensable step in the stages, phases of life.  The image of pruning might just be the one image that can help you make sense of your own life. I know it has helped me make sense of mine.

Consider again, this verse I again that I began with:

Jesus says, Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that continues to bear fruit, He [repeatedly] prunes, so that it will bear more fruit [even richer and finer fruit]. Pruning is vitally important for us to grow in our walk with God. (John 15:2 Amplified).

Here are some take-a-ways to consider:

• It’s about fruit. Life is about fruit. God is all about fruit.

• Fruit is more than numbers, quantity and the needle always moving up and to the right. Fruit is inside. Fruit is the internal benefit from prunning—not to mention the outer benefit of others experiencing us living in a better way and being in a better place.

• Pruning is vitally important.

• Pruning happens repeatedly and  the aging process  or seasons of our life help  to give us understanding of this reality.

• Pruning is necessary for growth.

• Pruning happens so we can bear fruit.

It’s best understood to consider how the Apostle Paul attempted to describe this “fruit.” I turn to Eugene Peterson to help us in our own street language of The Message. Listen how Peterson explains Paul’s words in Galatians:

“But what happens when we live God’s way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard—things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely.” (5:22-23).

Take each phrase of the text. Who wouldn’t want each and every one?  Perhaps in our day and time expressed in our culture, we’ve gotten mixed up on what the fruit of life really is. Is it success? Is it being at the top of our game? Is it climbing the ladder. I think not.

Most of us know the “fruit” Paul described in more basic terms like:  love, joy and peace… but don’t slide over those words—those inner realities too quickly.  Isn’t that really what we want in this one and quick life? 

Then, let the pruning come.  Excess—too much of any good thing can destroy us.

After so much pruning, I suppose the Divine Gardner thought, “Ok. That will do—for now.  You’re ready now to grow in all the right, good and green ways I intended.”

My stump-left soul needed new soil—a dark, rich and moist earthiness to place our roots in the hope that something might actually come forth out of all the brown, dark, exposed roots that I had become.  Not only was I pruned but there was something else that needed to happen in order for me to green up again.  I needed to move and I needed to move to new soil—a new place where there was the hope of a whole new way of life.

What I know is this:  Gwen and I moved our two stumps up to the old, soft and green mountains of North Carolina. We found a mountain valley where farmers grow thousands of acres of tomatoes, cantaloupe, Silver Queen corn and pole beans. It’s a place where clouds enshrouds the bluish hue of ancient mountains; a small town cocooned by a National Forest, this new place was to be our new “home.”  After discerning place and more places, Brevard, NC seemed to be THE place where we felt called and compelled to re-do our lives and put down roots in the hope that these weathered roots would grow yet again.

We moved in winter. We bought an old house needing attention in every room and interestingly—all the landscape needing re-doing. All the shrubs needed to be dug out and replanted to open out the windows to be able to see out and beyond allowing the majestic views to be enjoyed.  I dug up huge, five feet tall Azaleas; Hydrangeas, and Goldenrods and they laid naked in the lawn in total dormancy until I had the time to plant them. A gardening expert told me to not be afraid of letting the roots and barren shrubs just lay out on the frozen ground.  “They are asleep right now” he said.  “Only Spring will wake them now.” One by one, the shrubs found their new place as I was finding mine. They looked dead, lifeless and abandoned of hope. 

I planted them in the hope and in the vision that they would be resurrected into new life. It was my own hope. I was my own prayer. It was Gwen’s and my deeply held shared desire. We wanted to live but not in the way we had lived. We wanted a new life.

My heart needed pruning, you see, so that my soul might live. I feel the greening. I am feeling alive. Thanks be to God!