Pruning

I just spent 2 hours out working in my garden yesterday evening. Had a good talk with  our 9-year-old about the meaning of the word "prune". He was so cute, talking about when he got baptized earlier this year his feet got all "pruney" from being in the water. grin emoticon But we did get down to the fact that Jesus must clean/prune us continually to bring us into the shape of His will, just like we were doing to our roses.

I was pretty hard on my plants, leaving only about 6 healthy blooms and a bunch of buds behind (on a total of about 18 rose bushes!) so it looks pretty stark right now. But each cut was made with care and purpose, knowing that by my birthday at the end of the month, I will have a glorious garden full of healthy blossoms, all on nicely trimmed and shaped plants!

I take comfort from my parent's story as newly weds. They had several rose bushes under the kitchen window. Mom was having horrid allergies, so Dad went out and brutally shopped them all nearly down to the roots to try to kill them. They came back healthier and prettier than before! So when the devil sets out to destroy me, God can intend the same season of harsh pruning for my benefit.

I am the Real Vine and my Father is the Farmer. He cuts off every branch of me that doesn’t bear grapes. And every branch that is grape-bearing he prunes back so it will bear even more.

John 15:1-2 (The Message)

He cleanses and repeatedly prunes every branch to make it bear more AND richer AND more excellent fruit!

"You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so 

that you may go and bear fruit-fruit that will last-and so that

whatever you ask for in My name the Father will give you.

This is My command: Love each other." 

John 15:16-17

Lessons from a Rose Garden

Edited to add a picture I drew, based on this post, as part of my stroke recovery therapy process.

This weekend, I posted a long update on my  stoke recovery blog, Stroke of Grace.  I wanted to share a portion of that post with you here, because, while not a topic directly addressed in my upcoming book, it will give you a taste of the "flavor" you might expect to find behind the devotionals in Harvesting Hope from Heartache:

God decided yesterday's gardening hours were a great living object lesson time. I had one really huge, really wild and overgrown, totally healthy [rose] bush. This spring it has gone crazy, throwing out lush stalks several feet long in all directions. It looked so vibrant, it seemed a shame to prune it at all, but it had grown so intently that it totally blocked a walkway between it and the next bush. I could find very little to prune for the health of the plant, but knew the only way to both reclaim my pathway and to encourage voluminous blooming of the whole plant later this spring, would be to bring the unshapen plant under the harsh cuts of the pruning sheers while the sprouts were young and pliable today.

After clearing out a very few branches in need of pruning, I took some well-planning, but perhaps seeming brutal whacks at the path side of that plant, adding dozens of feet of long, strong, beautiful, thriving branches to my discard pile, taking that side of the plant down by half or more in size.

June, 2013: end result of pruning!

I told God that it seemed amazing that rather than shocking the plant to death, I knew my actions were simply to bring around more intentional design and purpose, resulting in a more pleasing and fruitful bush. The more pruned, the more plentiful the expected flowering later this spring and summer.  He replied to my heart, "This is what I am doing in you!"

Once I had that first side molded to my design again, it occurred to me that now the plant looked pathetically out of balance, lopsided, so I continued hacking my way around the whole bush until it was beautifully rounded, but only a shadow of the lush plant I had started with. Still, I am confident that in a month or two, the pain I inflicted today will result in a multitude of glorious blossoms in my healthy, well-grounded bush that no longer risks uprooting in our violent wind storms, like the tumble weeds that roll down the street, much too substantial in size for their relatively tiny root structures to hold them fast in place.

The more I thought about it, God seemed to explain that my life was much like that rose bush, wild and thriving and chasing after every opportunity to stretch and send out exploring fronds. It took ten years of infertility, losses, and decades of chronic illness to begin to tame me, but while I didn't enjoy the pruning process in the least, it was necessary so that my vigor for life didn't lead me so far out of God's intended design that I couldn't accomplish the purpose He intended me to fulfill. It wasn't that those passions were unhealthy or unwise, but the abundance and scattered directions threaten to leave my roots unstable, thus becoming undesirable in their very abundance.

 

 Once that first season of pruning was brought toward conclusion, I had one area of my life mostly trained into obedience, but that seemed to make the rest of all my wild longing more prominent. I see the additional shaping of this strong, healthy plant as my strokes, the ongoing recovery journey toward recovery, and our private family battles. I have been left shattered, violently pruned under the often seemingly unkind hand of the Master Gardener, but he knows that the only way to refocus my many thriving branches (abundance of gifts I had been blessed with, such as a signing voice, playing my flute, the ability to gracefully communicate with both hands via Sign Language, physical beauty, artistic expression through a variety of crafts and mediums I can no longer physically manage, the abundance of home-based business I have tried my hands at over this past decade, even the continued homeschooling of my children, and so much more I haven't even had time to identify yet) is to remove all that fall outside His intent for my life, to not leave me all those opportunities for "chasing after the wind," but bring me down to the bare essentials and start the training process anew (if I had to guess today, I think the critical areas God would have me focus on now would be family, home, health recovery, and writing that may eventually lead to public speaking) so that I may eventually harness that untamed enthusiasm and bring forth a bountiful harvest under His intended plan. I get it, more clearly than I ever have, God. 

Jennifer Saake, last professional picture taken pre-stroke, October, 2010.

My Next Book

I'm often asked when I'm going to write my next book. In reality I've been in the process of writing a book on the life of Paul as encouragement for living with chronic pain and illness for probably close to 5 years now. Since Hannah's Hope took me about 10 years to write, that may not be such exciting news because it tells you I still have a very long way to go!

What I hope is more exciting, what I would like to ask you to partner with me in prayer as God continues to unfold His plan, is that this very blog is becoming a launching pad for what I feel God is turning into my "next" book. Yes, I'm continuing to work on the Paul book too, but over the past year God has me focusing more on an exploration of the Fruit of the Spirit and I've been working on a Bible study related to what He's teaching me.

How does the Fruit of the Spirit tie in with Harvesting Hope from Heartache? I'm glad you asked. ;) It all has to do with sowing seeds, gathering fruit, and ultimately what Source hope springs from. What better time to look to the Lord for help than in the midst of the trials? I'm very excited to see how God is tying so many themes together in my life as He's teaching me through Galatians 5 this year! I pray that this book will be as much of a blessing to you as the journey has been to me.

It is my current goal to have enough of this study written and ready to present to publishers that I can begin the query process around the end of the year or in the very early part of 2012. Will you join me in specific prayer that God will give me His words to write and that this project will unfold according to His will and in His perfect timing?

If you would like to stay updated about my progress, I've just opened a new Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/HarvestingHope and would love to have you "like" me over there. :) Feel free to pass this link along to your friends as well.

Desert Seasons

Have you ever endured a really long "dry spell" in your relationship with God? It's hard to harvest much in a desert isn't it?

I once heard a sermon on "desert seasons" about the 40 years of wilderness wandering for the Jews, David's time of hiding out in the desert to escape King Saul's death threats during nearly 20 years of waiting for the fulfillment of his anointing as king, even Jesus' 40 days of fasting and temptation after He was baptized by John and spoken as God's "beloved Son" straight from heaven at the beginning of His earthly ministry. It is hard to go through spiritual deserts where the pursuit of fellowship with Him seems so dry and fruitless and pointless!

If it's any encouragement, you are not alone in these feelings. In fact I think it is a pretty common experience for maturing Christians where God allows us to "outgrow" that initial passion and have to lean on Him more "blindly" in faith at times. Praying that He will give you the courage to keep "going through the motions" as an act of obedience, even when your heart doesn't feel like you are connecting, and that He will bring you through this "desert" (or "deserted" feeling?) time with renewed hope and purpose for the next season of your journey with Him.

Following God Through the Trials is a beautiful article I read this morning, further reflecting on these desert seasons. I pray it will bless you as it has me. Then go on to Storms in the Desert and be reminded that the Living Water will never leave you or forsake you, even when you don't "feel" Him near. {{{hug}}}

Thorns, Weeds, Give-away and Hope

Dealing with infertility, pregnancy loss or adoption struggles or know someone who is? I came across a give-away for my book, Hannah's Hope, on the Life {Sweet} Life blog today, open through April 1! The blog author, Sarah, is currently pregnant, but has a heart for those still walking the road of infertility.

Sarah's also got some great things to say about FamilyLife Weekend to Remember. Read my review here or between April 5-26, 2010, register for any upcoming Spring or Fall Weekend to Remember using the promotion code "INVITE" and go for 1/2 price, only $129/couple!

I'm still praying my way through the life of Paul, thus giving a lot of thought to thorns and weeds. Today's post at (in)Courage, Ellie and the Weeds is a sweet reminder to let God be our gardener. (To my infertility/loss friends, the article is built sweet conversations between a mother and her 3-year-old, but this mother has also suffered infant death if this knowledge makes the sweet exchange more readable for you).

I would like to ask your specific prayers for protection over me and for my family as I venture deeper into my Paul writing. I'm starting to see signs that satan's not happy with what God's wanting to accomplish through this book and he's trying to attack us, invading my dreams with ugly images, taking reign over my tongue in ugly words that tear down my loving husband, and bringing a spirit of disorder and discord into our home. In a way I'm thankful for these attacks only because they affirm that I must be on the right track if the old snake would take the time to try to sideline us, but I also know God longs for us to come running to Him with our fears and frustrations, and so I ask you to join me prayer for God to be glorified in and through our family in a time of spiritual warfare.

Would you pray with me that the Lord will keep us steadfast in Him and bring joy and harmony to our home as He speaks truth to me and helps me to rightly divide His Word to share with hearts broken through chronic physical pain and illness? If you would like to join me as a prayer partner for this newest writing project, please leave me a note here or email me at jsaake AT yahoo DOT com and I'll send you periodic prayer updates as the book project continues to unfold. Thank you!

Given a Thorn

If the following post is just a little too "up" and hard for you to digest right now, check out Just In Case You Wonder... to see that I'm for real and understand about those down days too! {{{hugs}}}


I love gardening, but I usually find myself starting to loose the battle against weeds by early May, and by July my garden is overrun simply because I don't have the energy or stamina to get out there and fight them, especially as temperatures climb and I wilt, just like my unwatered flowers, in the heat. I don't know that this year will be any different, but I can dream of a beautiful rose garden, can't I?

So with high hopes of a different outcome this year, I set out to do my gardening thing this morning while those weeds are still young and tender and the air is cool. Things went along well for the first few minutes, until suddenly I felt this irritating sensation in my hand every time I moved it or tried to grasp something.

The pain wasn't debilitating, just "there" enough to keep me from being able to pull weeds properly or make much headway in my battle. At first I tried to ignore it and keep pushing through, but the more I tried to go on with my work in spite of the pain, the more "stabbing" the sensation grew. What was wrong? Nothing obvious, so I tried different ways of grasping those weeds without using my thumb and discovered that an opposable digit really is necessary for weeding!

On very close inspection I discovered the tiniest of thorns, just barely visible, poking out of the pad of my thumb. It looked so small that it seemed I should be able to simply brush or even blow it away without consequence. But the more I tried to get rid of it, the deeper I drove it into my own flesh and the more irritated my hand became.

I went for the tweezers but just couldn't get a good grasp on it. By very nature of it's minuet size, that thorn became more problematic to remove than a big splinter would have been. That speck on my thumb ultimately put a halt to my gardening for the rest of the day.

After favoring this hand all day long I've finally realized that I will probably have to wait for it to fester before I can work that irritating little thorn out of there. How could something so seemingly insignificant cause me to have to change my plans not only in gardening but in several other normal, daily tasks today too? The whole experience has left me reflecting on what it is like to live with the progression of little, daily, ongoing losses in chronic illness.

Yes, of course a thorn so tiny that it can't be grasp with tweezers may seem trite in relation to significant health issues! But might not some of the same general principles apply?

Before I first got sick, I set out with a goal, my college degree ahead of me. That first week when everyone else on campus was sick too, I didn't give my illness much more thought than I did that first irritating little thorn poke this morning. But as my fellow-students began returning to class and my fevers and nausea and memory lapses and debilitating fatigue dragged on for weeks on end, I began to see this was not something I could just keep pushing through and went home to sleep through three weeks of Christmas vacation.

Unlike my gardening today, I actually tried to return to the task at hand as I attempted a second semester at school. Within 36 hours back in the dorm I was as sick as I had ever been prior to those weeks of mom's home-cooked meals and pampering. This began my "grasping at straws" (or should I say, "grasping at thorns"?) stage of the journey, months of desperately seeking medical answers and trying every "sure cure" that was offered to me. Just like trying to remove the thorn caused greater irritation to my thumb, many of the things I tried in hopes of regaining my health actually exacerbated the situation and caused further decline.

A diagnosis finally came in the midst of that grasping stage. Just as finding that tiny thorn in my thumb answered some questions about why I was experiencing the pain I felt, I was relieved to have a name for my illness as well. But that relief was short-lived as I moved from grasping to festering with boiling anger as the realities of such a diagnosis sank in. I was not only fighting my illness but the heart-infection of bitterness as I raged against a broken body, broken dreams, and the loss of my any illusions I had of being in control.

I had to fester for a long time before I could reach the acceptance stage. Here I realized I was going to need to alter my life significantly around my "thorn" and learn to live with it for as long as it took to work it’s way out (in this case, maybe the rest of my lifetime). I had to develop a new definition of "normal" daily life, accepting that this form of "normal" could vary dramatically from day to day or sometimes even from moment to moment. Just as in gardening the simple task of grasping a weed was unexpected hindered by pain shooting through my thumb, my new normal with chronic illness sometimes includes feeling "fine" as I step out the door to get the mail, only to find myself unprepared for the exhausting effort of trying to walk back up the driveway.

When my husband came home from work tonight he immediately noticed three long scratches across the back of my hand, the result of carelessly brushing up against a rose bush this morning. But he didn't notice that little thorn in my thumb until I took the time and seemingly silly effort to point it out to him. Strangely enough, though they look ugly, those scratches don't hurt much, hardly even bother me at all. It's that unseen thorn that causes me to alter the very way I usually do things. Just as in illness, often the obvious struggles are easier to cope with than the unseen conditions that cause others to wonder why I claim to be sick or can be unreliable to fulfilling my commitments when I look so healthy.

In the book of 2 Corinthians, chapter 12, the apostle Paul writes:

7To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. 8Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 9But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. 10That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

- NIV

I don’t know all the reasons why God has allowed my “thorn in the flesh”. Is it to keep me from becoming conceited? Possibly so, for I know illness has certainly humbled me and helped me to realize that God is God and I am not!
Is it a “messenger of Satan” intended to torment me? Only God knows for sure why He allows any kinds of trials in my life, but I am comforted by the book of Job to see that if satan has been allowed to bring any pain into my life, that his influence must be filtered and tempered through Heaven first. He can only touch me as far as God allows and his powers are limited by God's strict parameters. Like Job, I can only see a terribly small sliver of what is actually happening in our world as influenced by the spiritual realms, but I do know that God is the one ultimately in control!

So as for the source of my "thorn" I can say with confidence that I know that God has the power to prevent these trials, but in His great wisdom He has chosen to allow them in my life (be it directly through satan or simply as a natural by-product of this broken, fallen world) for some perfect reason. Because I cannot see the big picture from His perspective, instead I must cling to His promise that His grace is enough and accept that His power can shine most fully through me when I yield my heart to His plans. Therefore, I will boast gladly in my weakness and thank Him for the power that He gives me for every step He enables me to take, every breath He blesses me to draw.

James chapter 1 says,

2Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. 4Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

I don’t know that I can honestly say I “delight” in my weaknesses quite yet, though I am beginning to see that if it was "given" to me, then I can choose to accept it as a "gift" and look for joy even in the midst of struggle and pain. A bit later in that James passage we read,

17Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.

Even though my physical condition is ever changing, I can cling to my unchanging God! I pray that He will refine and mature me through this process so that others will see Christ’s strength in and through me even if they fail to understand about my thorns.


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The theme of the May Christians with Chronic Illness Blog Carnival is "Coping with Loss". What is something you miss since you have had your chronic illness/pain? How have you been able to adjust and accept the fact you can no longer do “it”? What new hobbies or activities have you found you enjoy that somewhat replace what you lost? What has your family missed concerning your illness and how have you found a way to change the way you do things so you can still participate in family activities? Read additional articles from theis Carnival at http://chronicillnesssupport.wordpress.com/2009/05/15/christians-with-chronic-illness-blog-carnival-2

Submit your ideas for the June carnival at ChristiansWithIllnessBlogCarnival.com by June 5 to have your post considered for next month's carnival selections. Next month's topic is anything related to children while living with chronic illness, such as keeping them busy over the summer, the grief of not being able to have kids (or maybe choosing not to due to illness), the stress of keeping up with kids, etc.