Pruning

 A week after your 21st birthday, I went outside to watch Dad prune your tree and others in our yard.  He cut off the branches which were going in the opposite direction.  He cut off the ones that looked damaged.  He cut off the ones which were going to rub against each other and cause damage during wind storms.

He then found suckers.  These are new shoots from the root that sprout up fast and straight next to the main tree and they try to take over as the main trunk.  He cut those off at the ground.

As I silently watched him pruning, it reminded me of how God prunes us.  And how He's going to prune you.

I remember how He pruned me throughout my life.  When I was 16 and going my own direction, after having dedicated my life to him at the age of 7, He started calling me back.  I heard Him, I felt Him trying to prune branches out of my trunk.  My eyes were opened that certain friends weren't good for me and I felt led to cut those off.  I realized also that the romance books I had gotten into were not showing me good relationships, and were feeding me lies about love.  He pruned those from me too.  By 17, I re-dedicated my life to Him....and then fell away and went my own direction again.  Though, somehow, it seemed easier once I graduated highschool and started my own life.  Maybe graduating helped prune some bad influences?  Maybe it helped prune my need to conform and not stand out?

Not too long after we got married, childhood issues started to surface.  My thoughts of what a husband should be, or shouldn't be surfaced.  My ideas on what a wife should be and do were wrong.  And though I thought I had forgiven my father for the abuse, it was only partial.  I think that sometimes, you have to forgive and forgive and forgive.  Seventy times seven.  Because the enemy will try to remind you and bring up those old feelings.  It's taken 50 years for me to realize that those feelings might never completely go away but I have learned that when they start to overcome me, I just have to hand them back to God again. How many times have I prayed, "Lord, you are going to have to forgive him because I can't do it on my own"?  But before all of that revelation, I was a young married woman with a very skewed perception of how marriage should work.  And that caused us many problems.  And I started fighting with Dad about going to church.  I was very passive-aggressive, forgetting to set the alarm to wake us up on time, or acting sick when I wasn't.  Eventually, he got tired of fighting it and we stopped going.  Things between us got worse.  I started to wonder if we were headed to divorce.  I again started to make my way back to unhealthy friendships.  And God let me go my own way for a long while.  I was a very selfish person and I didn't know how to really give into a relationship.  This took its toll on our marriage.  Our finances were in a horrible spot because I wasn't willing to submit.  Dad told me that we needed to cut back.  And I kept getting my expensive hair color and cuts and got my nails done and didn't watch prices at the stores.  Things were more strained between us.

But, a year or so into our marriage, we decided to start a family.  But we ran into problems there too.  For several years, we tried on our own and that led me into depression.  I found a message board online where my first real community of online friends were...and it was for ladies who were having trouble trying to conceive, called TryingToConceive.com.  We shared frustrations, we shared medical news, we shared life.  These women were my tribe at that time.  I still believed in God but had gone my own way.  He wasn't a big part of my life.  I wasn't reading my Bible, I wasn't in church, I had no Christian friends.  But I still called myself a Christian.  And I found a couple ladies in the group who were in a similar situation with their faith.  It was like I was angry at God...but I was shoving my feelings deep down so I didn't really even realize it.

And then I finally conceived your brother.  After 7 years of marriage.  I was elated.  For a day.  And then horrible hyperemesis set in.  I was so sick that I couldn't keep water down.  I was hospitalized several times for hydration and lost 30 pounds in 4 weeks.  I saw another of my online friends at TTC.com who had been trying just as desperately to conceive as I had been - and she got pregnant just before I did.  She had hyperemesis as well and wasn't able to handle it.  She decided to end her pregnancy because she was so sick.  When I fell horribly sick as well, it was never an option for me.  I just knew that I had to endure.  And about 4 weeks in, we found medication that was beginning to help.  I still had to force-feed myself the rest of the pregnancy but I hung in there.  I tried to go back to work but wasn't able to handle the cafeteria smells and the rush-hour exhaust fumes and didn't stay there long.  We started to have our house built so we'd have more space with a growing family.  So I spent my time at home working on packing and cleaning the old house while your dad continued to work.  We moved into our house on your Grammy's birthday in June.  Your brother was born in September.

A year later, 9/11 happened.  Your brother was a high-needs baby and would scream if I put him down anywhere so I had gotten into the habit of just carrying him everywhere, even when he was sleeping.  So I spent a lot of time in front of the tv, watching the 9/11 aftermath coverage for months.  I grew more and more depressed.  I finally went to my OB and told her that I thought I was having post-partum depression.  She talked with me for 45 minutes and eventually said, "I think you just need to get out of the house.  You're still nursing, why don't you join a La Leche League Group?"  So, I did.  In that group, I found 5 women who wanted to start a playgroup.  Sierra was a strong Christian but Pam wasn't.  I became close to Pam and stayed away from Sierra, despite her trying to be closer.  I think I thought I was happy in my life and didn't want any changes and the sight of Sierra reminded me that I needed change.  

Grammy was always on me to return to church but I brushed her off.  I still wanted to do it my way.  But, we attended the Trunk or Treat at her church and I decided that I missed the fellowship that I'd had growing up in church.  We decided to start attending services there.  We went for a couple months and then my father died unexpectedly.  I was 30 years old and J was 6 months.  I was shoved into a role that I did not want - to handle all of the estate.  I had to clean the house out, make it ready for sale, sell it and split the proceeds between family members as I saw fit.  It was a monumental task, made more difficult by having a young baby and 3yr old tag along.  And internally, I was a wreck.  I'd intentionally let my relationship with my father lapse, always hoping that we'd eventually figure it all out.  Always thinking there was more time.  But with his death, the door forever shut on that possibility.  And that was much harder than I ever expected it to be.  Not him but that we never had it all out, never said everything we should have said.  I would never get the apology I wanted.

I had joined a ladies Bible study at Grammy's church at that time.  I really liked the teacher.  And later found out that she was having an affair with our neighbor.  I was disillusioned with the whole church and we stopped attending there but started looking around at other churches, not committing to any one in particular.  At one point, I had a conversation with Aunt D and told her that I felt so alone and cut-off from the rest of the world.  She suggested that I join MOPS.  I found a church a few miles away and joined their group.  I really loved it and stepped into a leadership role almost immediately.  I put together a monthly newsletter for the large group and put together some Powerpoint presentations.  I really loved feeling useful again.  I also gained some friendships there.  One friend, Michelle, I got very close to.  We talked often and did a few playdates outside of the group.  That was in the midst of the whole Twilight craze and we argued about it a lot because we were on different "teams".  We pulled a couple all-nighters to watch the new movies as they came out.  She was fun but I don't believe she'd ever really given her heart to Jesus.  And I was still mostly playing at having faith.    But God was quietly leading my thoughts down a different path.  It certainly wasn't anything I was doing - I wasn't digging into the Bible or spending any time in prayer, other than when I needed something.  But what I was hearing on Sundays was doing a work in my heart.  I realized that I needed to get off the fence.  I had to either jump all-in or jump all-out.  More pruning.

Several things happened all at once that pushed me over the edge:
1. I noticed that the MOPS group was teaching less and less about God.  In the February meeting...you know, the one all about l-o-v-e, they didn't mention God once, nor did they pray over the food that morning.  
2. I had been attending the church that the MOPS group was held at.  They were a different denomination than I had grown up with but I didn't think things were all that different.  Until the one day when the minister's sermon was all about "bring your Bibles with you to church so that you can look up the verses I give you and confirm that what I'm telling you is the truth".  I remember thinking, "This is baby-Christian stuff - what am I doing here?"  (It's odd and shameful that I was thinking that because I'd gone my own way for so long but that's what I was thinking.)
3. Michelle decided to leave her husband.  We went out to a card-making class together and she was all kinds of giddy and happy and when I pressed her, she told me that she'd reconnected with her highschool boyfriend and was going to leave her husband and her 3yo son and move to NY to be with him.

And I decided that I was a Christian and I was going to live my life the way Christ wanted me to.  So, I responded in these ways:
1. I sent a long letter to the leadership team in my MOPS group, telling them how I thought our boat had gotten off course and pointed out that our Christian message had been snuffed out.  They called an emergency meeting one night, with the church secretary to take notes.  The leader and co-leader of the MOPS group stood up and spoke such hateful words to and about me.  I don't remember any of them specifically because I had a conversation with God during that time.  He said, "It's time to go.  You did what I asked."  I argued with Him.  I really loved this group and I wanted to stay.  I really loved doing that newsletter.  But He was clear that it was time to go.  I walked out of that meeting, knowing I was done.
2. I decided that this wasn't the church for me to grow in and I started to look for a Baptist church that had a MOPS group and a homeschool group.  This led me to the church you grew up in.  Oh yeah, and on my first visit there, flipping through the ministry teams available, there was a newsletter group.  A woman who I'd been friends with in my childhood church took me by the wing and introduced me around.  The woman running the MOPS group there was an old friend from my childhood church too.  It felt like coming home and I never looked any further.
3. On the way home from that card making class with Michelle, I told her that God wanted her to go home and figure things out with her husband.  That she shouldn't give up.  That they should seek counseling, that she would regret leaving her son.  It fell on deaf ears but the Lord took over my mouth that night.  Those weren't words that I would ever feel comfortable saying to someone, even though I knew they were true.  I'm just not a confrontational person.  But He said what she needed to hear and as she closed the car door that night, the Lord told me that our relationship was over.  He also provided new friends at the new church...and in time, much better friends than I ever had in my MOPS group.  This pruning hurt because it was severed relationships...but it made way for better things for me.  I grew in my spiritual walk at the new church by leaps and bounds.  I made many life-long friends.  I felt you kids had good teaching, friends and had good experiences in WAM and VBS and all the programs available (at least in the children's programs).

Lots and lots of pruning.  And He's still pruning me today.  Cutting away things from my life that aren't good for me and grafting in things that are.  And I know He's doing that for you too because He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it.