Whisteria

Finally the weather has given me a chance to get outside.  We had a family weeding day on Sunday after church.  I am in a significant amount of pain with this darn chemo and it is keeping me from doing things I could do 3 months ago.  So now the kiddos have to help, and can't complain because then I get to pull the pain card.  I don't really like to do that.  So while Jayson was weeding for the first time I looked at the Whisteria tree and decided I needed to tame it.  The blooms are about to blossom and one of my favorite smells of summer is that beautiful purple flower.

The vines are totally out of control.  They criss cross over and around and under and everywhere.  So I started at the bottom where the vines were really just growing along the ground.  That was easy.  Then I looked closer and found some vines that were dead, so I pruned those away.  As I was pulling some of those dead vines away I saw that altho some of the vine looked dead, the other end had new growth on it.  Thankfully I didn't prune away any flowers.  So I just kinda kept going but, as is usual, my mind got caught up in some thoughts about pruning the dead vines that were alive.

We learn in the Bible that we will be pruned so that we can bare much fruit- the fruit of the spirit.  Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness and Self Control.  We learn that sometimes we need to continue pruning ourselves so that we can become more fruitful.  And I got to wondering: Is it possible to prune ourselves too quickly?  Like those vines I pruned that looked dead but really had new growth, do we prune something away that is sprouting new growth that will become beautiful?  When we prune something that hinders our relationship with Jesus do we give it enough time to be gone, for the new growth to begin to change us and make us beautiful, before we prune the next thing.  I wonder if that is a way to keep ourselves from facing our weaknesses and strengths.  If we just keep pruning without looking for the new growth, without learning how to be that new person, we never really have to come to grips with the changes happening within our hearts. Just another form of avoidance.

We tend to call it processing time.  It's that time when we talk it out with friends, pray about what is ugly inside of us, and realize that it is time to make a change for the better, to better our witness, to better our relationship with Jesus which will ultimately better us.  I am guilty of saying I'm processing when really I am busy cleaning or working or having fun so I don't have to face 'it'.  Like this recurrence again this spring.  I cannot get to the other end of the vine where the new growth and better relationship is.  I'm very viney, with thoughts, mostly bad, mostly unedifying, mostly negative, stringing themselves around each other until they are tangled up.  I'm just a dead vine.  I don't have Peace, and I'm pretty sure Patience is not one of my top 10 best qualities.  And Faithful- I don't know. I don't feel faith filled sometimes.  Maybe I am just one of those wandering vines I pruned from the ground.  Unsure of where I should go, how I should feel, how not to worry, how not to think the worst.

And the big difference this time is the pain element.  That is what is bringing my spirit down, making me feel unfit to fight this fight-again.  Me, in pain, in each and every joint, that has been known to bring me to tears makes for a strange Vicki.  Because Vicki goes, and goes, and goes.  And right now if I do that, the pain is worse.  So I have to figure out how to manage it, and how to manage a less active life.  And quite frankly, that makes me mad.  So bitterness is something I am trying to prune along with trying to grow some Peace about this body of mine.  I'm getting tired of redefining myself- my physical self.

Maybe the scent of the Whisteria will help to sooth my soul.

Vicki