The Sylvr Pen

And so, there he goes again, hacking away at the poor grape vines.

They were draping long and full-skirted like this.

But then, you know what it says in John 15:2…

For another year like this,

prune we must, just as we need to thin and weed.

May I remember all this as I go through another pruning/weeding/thinning session. God is good and gracious, and works all these things together for the good of those who love Him.

I am seeing the blessing already.

Back in July, I did it: I set my jaw, gritted my teeth, marched out there and let them have it. I pulled them out by measure, wincing repeatedly. It almost hurt as if I were one of them, carrot remaining in a decimated bed! It did seem so destructive…

I wonder if it hurt that much because each plucking gesture reminded me of thing after thing plucked away from my life: aims, dreams, people, confidence in people, pleasant abilities and earnest ministries… Lots. Lost.

(Sigh!) But I set my jaw again and thanked my Master Gardener, my Eternal Husbandman, for all those personal thinnings, based on the biblical principle that “Thin we must,” and “Thinned we must be,” for healthy soul growth to happen (John 15:2).

The carrot bed: it was a potential parable picturing that.

So, what happened? How did the parable end?

Here you see it. All from one small garden bed, three short rows, of fragile wisps of green growth, left bereft:

We make whining, even wailing protest. We cry, repeating, “Why?” not listening for the answer(s) we don’t want to hear. We hate to let go. We think we’re being robbed.

But we’re just being set up to flourish!

Thanks be to God Who gives us the increase (1 Cor 3:6)! (And thins so it can happen.)

*****

I gaze at it through urban townhouse windows, over seas of roofs so many miles from home.  I glimpse it through gazebo framing of a playground park where unknown dialects ebb and flow among ethnic faces unexpected in these suburbs.

Same sky, same heaven, spread over all.

Clouds draw back, unveil sunlight after rain and shadows, and I seek sheltered seating, while son goes following grandchild’s running romping play through tunnels, over bridges, up climbing walls, along meandering maze paths.

Three benches line a fence deflecting sunlight. I sit and breathe in rest, watch the interweaving movements of men and women following child and child, try identifying nations left for emmigration here.

She comes, stands near, as a young one, all flowing grace in fuschia tunic over vibrant white, moves drifting, to swings, and settles there to soar like lank and lovely bird in jewel-toned plumage. Granddaughter?

Two others, man and woman, tawny-skinned and in-between-aged, watch and talk with the soaring girl. She answers them in foreign tongue and speaks on a bright-white iphone fluent English.

Somehow disconnected, the older woman stands apart. Long trailing fabric folds swath her long-sleeved garment, a scarf wraps head and neck. I almost pant for her, wish her coolness, here beneath the sudden-burning heaven—same heaven spread out four hours north, to where I came from, spread out to where she came from.

She turns, comes walking to my bench retreat, ignoring empty benches, and sits, right near beside me.

I find myself near tongue-tied. But I nod a friendly greeting, say hello. She wipes the moisture from her forehead, settles back against the bench.

“It got hot.” I hear my own lame offering, and grope for something, anything, for better conversation. But does she even know my language? In her quiet answer I barely hear the syllables. And even if we share a language, words are still evading.

So I sit stiff, waiting the minutes left before we gather—mother, son, granddaughter—to exit toward the sunset. I crave a Pocket Testament, with nearly-fuschia-colored rose and Love on the white front cover—to give before I go, even in my tongue-tied state.

I have none, so I sit, and look where son last slipped from sight, watch the people, my spirit altered. At last I see him. I rise to go, turn oblique and smile toward my silent sitting-partner, say goodbye and drift away, all uncomfortable.

Same sky over all. Same God over all that sky. Same need under it all. Yet I sat silent, stiff, knowing all the methods, caring about the woman, yet held with childish shyness.

But there were two things:

From God—no words to speak, as He sometimes gives… only concern for a woman…

And prayer:  Even as I sat there. And in the car, riding elsewhere. And in the evening, later. And often since. And still, right now. I pray confession, ask forgiveness, intercede for her.

And I consider: Is this but a small and ineffective thing?

I believe it: “Prayer strikes the winning blow; service simply picks up the pieces.” I saw the evidence in Africa, though my body never went. Husband traveled, I stayed home. That’s how God led. He led my spirit simply, in His Spirit, to pray. Later I saw the granted gifts He’d moved my lips to ask for—needs otherwise unknown. Prayer went power bouncing then, satellite-beam-like, off the sky-dome stretching here to there.

Same sky, same heaven, stretches over all. Same God hovers over all that sky and all that need. Same God works through it all, via the power of prayer. I rest in that… and pray.

Just this today, from William Law (early 1700’s), because it’s the first thing my eyes lit on this morning, and it lit up my eyes:

Morning is to you the beginning of a new life… God has then given you a new enjoyment of yourself, and a fresh entrance into the world; [so] it is highly proper that your first devotions should be a praise and thanksgiving to God, as for a new creation, and that you should offer and devote body and soul, all that you are, and all that you have to His service and glory.

Receive, therefore, every day as a resurrection from death, as a new enjoyment of life. Meet every rising sun with such sentiments of God’s goodness, as if you had seen it and all things new-created on your account. And under the sense of so great a blessing, let your joyful heart praise and magnify so good and glorious a Creator.

Treasure old and new.

To do today: Revel in God’s goodness.

*****

Related Posts:

Multiplying the Treasure of Prayer (Part One: Where to Start)

Multiplying the Treasure of Prayer (Part Two: The Best Beginning?)

Multiplying the Treasure of Prayer (Part Three: What Else to Start With)

I’m gazing out my window through a cobweb. Huge, it covers a third of the broad pane–a mighty feat for a spider, an architectural wonder: parallels latched to radials, tight-stretched and precise.

Yet debris blown in has already marred it and hapless creatures trapped in its clutches have broken it.  And as soon as I get the chance, I’ll be sweeping the whole thing away.

Even as it hangs there, I shift position and look past its translucence, my eyes quickly drawn to the sky drama beyond, to swirling clouds gleaming white and silver and platinum against a bright blue sky. And the cobweb fades from view.

Such it is with life: a time to build up, a time to tear down, a time to be born, a time to die. We work so hard, yet time sweeps away our efforts, and greater glories outshine them.  But let’s look beyond them, to the place of greatest glories.

Death came early to my friend’s door.  Suddenly–like the brushing away of a gossamer—the thread of her life disappeared from this earth where I sit at a window, mesmerized by a sky.  As I stare and sigh and murmur quiet wonder, I think of her.

“Eye has not seen, nor has ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him” (1 Cr 2:9). If such glory is mine even here, what is she who loved Him much in earth-life experiencing where the apostle Paul witnessed wonders indescribable (2 Cr 12:2)?

How rich, how sweet, the beauty I can see before me! Yet, how much richer, sweeter must be the beauty lying, waiting beyond, all unseen!

I sit and ponder and rest in hope, the hope that does not disappoint (Romans 5:1-5).

*******

[reposted from the archives]