Pruning Perks

Here are some more of my thoughts on the connections to a rose. A healthy and fruitful (multiple blooms) rose is one that gets pruned every year. When roses get pruned, they get cut back about 1/3 to 2/3 shorter than their current height. Have you ever noticed the pruned rose bushes in your neighborhood during those harsh winter months?  They are stubby and awkward looking. On the beauty scale, they are not anything to look at.  In the eyes of the gardener tending to them, they are beautiful still because the gardener can see the next years beauty in his or her mind, knowing that pruning does amazing things for the fruitfulness of the plant in the future. The gardener always sees the grand potential in a plant as he or she is pruning. Pruning isn't meant to be a harsh action, but one of great care.....and if you want to go this far....of great love for the plant.

DOES ANY OF THIS HAVE TO DO WITH US??  YES.  I will finish with the passage of God's Word when Jesus speaks about the vine and the branches. And let you learn what you need to or what you want to learn from it. Be blessed and be a blessing to others, dear one.

JOHN 15:1-17

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. ² Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. ³ Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. ⁴ Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. ⁵ I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. ⁶ If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. ⁷ If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. ⁸ By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. ⁹ As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. ¹⁰ If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. ¹¹ These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.

¹² “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. ¹³ Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. ¹⁴ You are my friends if you do what I command you. ¹⁵ No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. ¹⁶ You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. ¹⁷ These things I command you, so that you will love one another."