I am the 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.
John 15:1-2
Pruning- To cut off parts or branches of (e.g. a shrub) to improve shape or growth.
Today I decided it would be a good day to prune my peach trees. For some that might seem like a natural thing but for me it was the first time I have ever done this.
A little back ground...We planted our fruit trees about 3 or 4 years ago (I blame my age for not being able to remember the exact year). Every year we get some fruit but I have never done anything with it and have just let the birds enjoy it. Well this year I thought no more birds. This fruit is mine um I mean ours. So I started rereading all the paperwork I had received with the trees. There in black and white ,actually black on blue, I was told that I needed to thin the fruit on my tree. Well to me that just didn't make sense. Don't I want the most fruit from my tree? Then I remembered back to my second year with my little orchard and I recalled how I lost a rather large limb because the fruit it was holding was just to heavy. It couldn't handle the weight and it broke at the base of the branch and trunk. So OK maybe these garden people know what they are talking about. Back to today.
I head out to the side of my house with my bucket (actually my kids beach bucket), my gloves and a little five foot ladder. Up I go. I grab a hold of a branch and gently pull it towards me and then I freeze. How do I know which peaches to remove? The paper didn't tell me and I didn't see anything in the books I have. So how do I choose? What if I choose the wrong one? What if I ruin the whole branch by choosing peach number 1 over peach number 2 or 3?? So I take a couple of deep breaths up on my 5 foot ladder and look up at the whole tree above me...mistake. I am not really afraid of heights but when I am perched on something high I get dizzy when I look up. Looking down I am OK but up well that's a different story. So down the ladder I go back into my garage where I grab my hubby's 10 foot ladder. Up I go and boy is it better. Now back to the pruning. There I am up about 7 feet off the ground and grabbing my first branch to prune. I look at it and I see that there are some spots where the peaches have grown in a bundle. Well that seemed like a logical place to start so I start pulling off the excess peaches. Then as I am doing this it dawns on me that some branches are sturdier while others are weaker. So I started looking at the strength of the branch to determine how many fruit it should have per branch. There I go pruning away. I actually was enjoying myself talking to my tree while I lovingly plucked the fruit that is its sole purpose in life to produce.
Before pruning After pruning
No longer sad over the fruit that will never reach its full potential but excited for the fruit that now has a chance to become even sweeter and juicier than before. As I stood there pruning away looking at each branch and deciding where to prune a little thought pops into my head. I wonder if this is how God feels when he is pruning me? I can just imagine him looking at me as a whole and then looking at my individual branches and deciding which ones are weak and which ones are strong. Then pruning the things in my life that might cause my weak branch to break away from my trunk (Jesus). I can just picture him with his eyes full of love and whispering sweetly as he pulls off a fruit because it just isn't meant to grow anymore. I can see him looking at the ones he leaves just picturing what they will become. How sweet and beautiful they will be to him.
At some point I decided that this job was to precious to do while wearing my gloves and so I took them off so that I could feel each peach. The ones that I was leaving and the ones that I was removing. I couldn't help but think about how much more God loves me than I love my tree. How precious my fruit must feel to him. How full his hands must get sometimes when there is so much that needs to be pruned away.
While I walked around gathering all the fruit that didn't make it into my bucket I was thinking again about those little peaches that will never be. For two trees there seemed to be an awful lot of pruned peaches.
Then I focused on what was left on the trees and I was again excited over the fruit that my trees would produce for us to enjoy.
Now if I can only keep the birds away!
But blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD
whose confidence is in him.
He will be like a tree planted by the water that
sends out its roots by the stream.
It does not fear when heat comes;
its leaves are always green.
It has no worries in a year of drought
and it never fails to bear fruit.
Jeremiah 17:7-8
My mini orchard includes two peach trees, two apple trees and two cherry trees.
"We are going to sit all the way in the back. Yeah cool."boys
