I hear the gardener coming, it is that time of year
for him to prune my branches to prepare for fruit next year.
You would think by now I’d be here
without dreading what’s
to come,
but it takes conscious effort to submit and not to run.
I hear the gardener coming and that familiar sound
of crackling leaves and branches as he walks upon the
ground.
The sun is setting early, the nights are getting cold,
and though it hurts to feel those shears,
it’s needful I’ve
been told.
For if I am not fruitful, then I will cease to be,
for it is in my fruitfulness that he has need of me.
Now here I am all naked, my leaves have all been shorn
there’s nothing left of what I was and I am trying not to
mourn.
I’m learning that my life’s not in what the gardener pruned
away,
but what the vine provides for me each moment of the day.
For I have come to realize I can do nothing on my own,
I glorify God my Father by abiding in his Son.
By myself I’m nothing, but what he makes of me.
It is in the knowing of this truth that I am really free.
Sharon Trumps
