Reading this blog rang true for me on so many levels...starting with my own real life tree that, alas, must go after decades of life in our yard!
I have been a part of this decision, to take out the tree that is literally growing along our roof, creaking and groaning on stormy nights and posing a threat if a hurricane happens our way. It has been providing easy access to our home for all of the wild critters in our neighborhood. Still it is a majestic looking tree and has been a part of the landscape for a long time...But I choose to look at the positive sides to this decision, and there are a few. This tree has a very dirty side to it. It sheds its leaves much of the year and fills the gutters and covers the patios and pool. The giant limbs that climb above the roof provide constant shade and the shingles are always covered in green slime! And then there are critters who have taken to climbing the tree in order to get into my attics and have their little squirrel babies, who in turn don't have the sense to leave before the escape routes are sealed up! Oh, I could go on...but I won't, instead I am looking to the days when this part of my yard will be open to the bright sunshine...who knows...maybe grass will grow! And back to Beth's blog, I love how she says...
"Not every loss of something old is a crying shame."
A few summers ago my son-in-law worked for his friend's landscaping business. I remember being in the car with him during that time and he commented "Wow, there's another "crepe murder..." a phrase commenting about the way people prune trees and shrubs (and specifically Crepe Myrtles). There are about as many views on pruning as people you talk to! I have around 40 hydrangeas in my yard. I love them and they are sooooooo beautiful when they are in bloom.
The first several years we lived in this house I talked to a lot of people about how to get the most wow factor out of my hydrangeas and for whatever reason I subscribed to cutting them back in the off season. Sure enough my efforts were rewarded with big, beautiful plants but only a few or NO blooms! More talking (this time to people whose hydrangeas were producing blooms every year)and since then I have not cut them back and they have bloomed and bloomed all summer long. Now I just clean them out and look for dead branches to remove. Hopefully this year there will be tons of blooms again!
Regardless of our differing views on pruning plants in our gardens, the bible is clear cut on this issue...
John 15:1-2
1 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 2 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.
I have some dead branches in my life that need to go...and the good news is that I don't have to wait until this growing season is over before I begin the work that needs to be done, starting with asking my Father to begin a work in me today. So yep, here it is, my April resolution....to get rid of the stuff that is keeping me from living the life Christ wants for me! Let me tell you, in the past several days that I have been thinking about this in earnest I have already felt the painful nips...no worries I say, there are good things coming!
This is what the Lord says:
“Cursed is the one who trusts in man,
who depends on flesh for his strength
and whose heart turns away from the Lord.
6 He will be like a bush in the wastelands;
he will not see prosperity when it comes.
He will dwell in the parched places of the desert,
in a salt land where no one lives.
7 “But blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord,
whose confidence is in him.
8 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 never fails to bear fruit.” Jeremiahs 17:5-8 NIV
