the season of death

It's October.

I have shamelessly had potted purple mums sitting by my front door for a solid two weeks now-- even though the majority of those two weeks was 20 degrees too hot for mums.

I've been impatiently waiting until the day I could light my 'Autumn Leaves' scented candle that smells precisely like every good thing about fall. in wax form. And just so you know, I lit it the day before the calendar claims it's the "First Day of Fall".

I had my first cup of Hot Apple Cider three weeks ago.

And I of course have celebrated the start of football season, my first night 'needing' a hoodie, and the first few crunchy leaves to step on.

Fall isn't even my favorite season, and yet I'm ecstatic.

As I mentioned earlier, I have mums. And it's been too hot outside for mums.

Also, I'm a plant killer. Add these things together and what do you get?

Dead mums. Very dead mums.

HOWEVER, since I am a broke college student and could not let those $10 go to waste, I began watering that little mum plant like mad once I finally realized it was dying.

Assuming this act was "too little too late", I had internally given up hope of ever seeing green or blooms on the plant again, but I was too lazy to throw the plant away or stop watering it. Maybe there was a sliver of hope somewhere within me, too, that kept me watering it.

Either way, it came back to life, and, in so doing, shocked me.

the aforementioned semi-dead mums

After a week or so of watering it carefully and seeing it slowly come back to life, yet not rid itself of the dead brown bits, I sat down today with a pair of kitchen scissors. Pushing aside the green bits while I cut and tenderly pulling the blooms out from the tangle of the brittle, dead bits, I couldn't help but be reminded of the promise spoken in John 15, that God will be our vinedresser.

Those big kitchen scissors were probably not the best tool for the job, but they cut the tiny brown branches adequately so I stuck with them. I was careful not to let the big scissors open too far so they wouldn't accidentally snip off a green branch in the process of my pruning, but wouldn't you know that there was one little green branch with a perfectly lavender-colored mum bloom on the end of it that was too intertwined with the dead brown bits and too thin of its own accord to survive when freed from the dried twigs. I would have loved to save it, but even some things that live must die early when you know the outcome will be death anyway, I suppose. So I snipped it away, too.

I sat there, indian style, as the water droplets from where I'd just watered the plant, dripped onto the sidewalk. I sat there, scissors in hand, and I gingerly reached into the plant and cut away the parts that were only hindering it. I sat there, mind racing, as I saw so much of myself in that little purple mum plant.

This season has been one of dying. Some because of my own lack of discipline in watering that area of my life and seeking to help it flourish. Some because God touched the tip of his finger onto a branch and called it dead. Either way, he's been using his big kitchen scissors to cut away these dead parts of me-- some of which I'm not ready for Him to cut away, some of which aren't fully dead yet.

But He knows that very branch in me that does not bear fruit needs to be taken away. So He takes it away. And every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. He calls me then to abide in Him. Which I'm attempting. But I still don't really know what that looks like or feels like or is. So I'm just giving it my best shot right now (which is somewhat ironic, because the baseline fact of 'abiding' is that there is no 'going' or 'trying' in abiding. You just do it. It just happens. You just exist in it.) "As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. 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." 

He goes on to command us to live in this lifestyle, "that your joy may be full", then He commands us to love abundantly and overwhelmingly.

The simple fact that these tales of being pruned while abiding in The Vine come right alongside the commandments to live in joy and love seem to make the abiding that much more imperative. If one is to be able to live joyfully and lovingly, one must first abide in the Vine. 

Abiding gives the implication of living in. The simple fact that we ABIDE in the Vine says that we are alive. Though He may be killing things, we still live. Though He may be cutting off parts of us, we still live. Though He may be freeing us from dead parts that have entangled us by getting His scissors scary close to us, we still live. Though the autumn may be fast approaching, He is caring for us so closely and so tenderly and so purposefully that He will not allow any part of us to die that does not need to die. 
And sometimes, the branches in us that are already producing fruit, He cuts off and re-plants so that it may produce more and better fruit.

I cannot honestly say that I am settled in my spirit with all the death in my heart lately. I can't tell you that I'm absolutely positive of all the exquisite fruit these deaths and prunings will eventually bring forth. I wish I could.
But right now, all I have to give is, "Ok, God. Ok. Do it. Ok. Ok. Ok. I am weak. I want to be happy at this. I want to have joy in this. But I'm not there. All I can give you is 'ok, do it.' And hope that's enough. Make me Yours. Make me alive in You as I abide in You."

When peace like a river attendeth my way, when sorrows like sea billows roll: whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say "It is well, it is well with my soul."