By Pinkie.
It looked sad. Bare. Lonely. Exposed. Vulnerable. Near death. Like a phantom.
On my daily walk I noticed the neighbor’s bush had been seriously cut back. It was springtime and it had been pruned. It looked more like a collection of sticks than a living plant.
Would it survive after a hack job like that? It didn’t look like it to my untrained eye. Was the homeowner trying to kill his/her bush? Not intentionally.
Could he/she have made a mistake? Was it pruned too much? Possibly.
I know how I felt pruned too severely when I returned to the world from the convent. I could only moan, “Why Lord?”
I would meditate on John 15 (the vine and the branches) and wonder if I was the pruned vine or the rejected junk thrown into the fire. It felt as though I could be either and that was not comforting.
I continued to walk past this bush and I noticed its steady growth and recovery. Eventually it started sprouting buds so I took a picture. I wanted to be reminded of this rebirth, of this growth after looking utterly hopeless and forlorn.
By the end of the summer, the bush was massive and it was hard to believe it was chopped to nothing roughly six months ago. This change was gradual and happened over a long period of time. But it did occur, even though the changes day to day were imperceptible.
It is the same for me. I do not feel much different today compared to yesterday. Sometimes I even feel worse. Two steps forward, and one step back, etc. I am confident I do not look outwardly different today compared to yesterday, just like the bush. But that time period is too small.
God has given me glimpses of my growth and recovery from that extensive pruning when I look at larger chunks of time. Often I don’t recognize it but the reality is that I am trending upward. When I reach certain milestones they help me take a moment and do a direct comparison.
How about you? Do you try and stay focused on the bigger picture? How do you do that? How do you encourage yourself and others day to day?
I could not agree more. I’ve often wondered, “will this period of my life (transition from religious life into the world) ever conclude?” “Has the Lord forgotten His promise to me – of fulfillment, joy, happiness?” I have found Advent to be just the right conduit to press into these questions. Reverently treading here, but I have found praying the Divine Office of immense help – to know I am not alone, to know others before me have asked (begged, pleaded) God for relief from this wearying time. And so we hear…
“O Lord, turn your ear to my cry. Do not be deaf to my tears. In your house I am a passing guest, a pilgrim, like all my fathers. Look away that I may breathe again before I depart to be no more” (Psalm 39)
“Your light will come, Jerusalem; the Lord will dawn on you in radiant beauty. You will see his glory within you.”
And for something a little lighter – Cardinal Dolan’s homily for the Second Sunday of Advent, “God’s time is not our time but God always has a plan. It is often in retrospect, looking back in time, that we see God working in our lives.” http://cardinaldolan.org/index.php/second-sunday-of-advent-homily/