Have I mentioned I’m not a gardener? I’m one of those special ones who can kill anything green. But no one ever said I was a quitter. So….poor plants, I keep trying.
This year I thought I had happened upon success…I had potted petunias within what I thought was an animal-proof fence…and they were actually growing and colorful and draping like I’d seen others do. I was so happy with them…I very much felt the Petunia Expert. You can guess what happened next…though I never truly saw her, I discovered a four-legged herbivore had slipped through a Narrow Spot and munched one pot down to just above the dirt level. Roots were still there…but no beautiful flowers or draped branches remained. None, zero, zilch.
With my previous experiences, while greatly disappointed, I acknowledged my dismal history with green things and also owned the failure as my own, having left a Narrow Spot. Since I love a good experiment, I kept both Petunia pots where they had always been (the Narrow Spot now barricaded I hoped) and continued to water both the same. I bemoaned the short-cropped one and praised the flowering one And I tended to both. The cropped-one began to quickly put out recovery leaves, much to my glee, and the flowering one continued to produce its flowers, though it began to look tired. The cropped one grew more bushy, the flowering one still flowering but with yellowing leaves and grew more stringy. I wasn’t sure what I, the Petunia Expert, was doing wrong. The cropped one started flowering vibrant flowers again….
We find ourselves flowering as God intended. Life is going well, life could even be beautiful. Then an Enemy (an event, a person, a disappointment, a failure) slips through a Narrow Spot and before we know it we’re nipped in the bud, nearly to our Roots that hold us to what we know. Why did this happen?! Possibly we simply say “I’ve always been like this, a failure”…or “it was my fault, no wonder.”
Or maybe we’re the Flowering One, looking on at the Cropped One who has gone through a painful nipping. We are praised for continuing to do THE JOB while others are failing. We pat ourselves on the back. Aren’t we glad the nipping didn’t find our Narrow Spot? Maybe it was judgement for the Cropped One, maybe they deserved it, maybe it was just bad luck.
But both of us are allowed to continue on in our way, both are provided the Water and the Sun. Both are protected from the Enemy equally. And given time, the Cropped One begins to regrow in deep colors, then producing stunning flowers. Out of the adversity, regrowth causes the Cropped One to become flowering again. And the Flowering One…well, it continues to flower but before long appears unhealthy, bedraggled, tired…more so than the Cropped One.
And I lovingly, reluctantly yet firmly, took my garden loppers to the flowering one and nipped it down myself, nearly to the dirt level. Can it be that God works through the adversity, even the Enemy, to reshape and regrow us after we’ve been cut down? And can it be that God HIMSELF may cause the flowering of us…the unhealthy, bedraggled, tired…to be nipped in the bud so that we can ALSO regrow, become healthy, and flower again. Just as He’d designed us to.
I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.
Jesus, John 15:1-2
