I trimmed my roses, pricking my finger in the process. It burned a tiny hole in my finger, stinging with the wrath of a thousand miniature bees. When it bled, I winced a little, but I remembered why I was trimming the roses, and I forged ahead, trimming larger stems with larger thorns. Had I worn gloves, the task would have been less daunting, but as I was racing against an approaching torrent of rain, I knew I didn't have time to even look for the misplaced gloves. With Spring right around the corner, now is the time to prune, giving the best chance for new growth. When we prune, we are removing the old, the dead, the diseased, allowing the plant to breath, to reach up and touch the rays of the sun, to begin again. That's just what God does with us. He prunes away our old habits, our dead intentions, our diseased attitudes, leaving us clean and new, ready to grow new fruit. Fruit grown exactly the way He would grow it. He shines His rays of light and love. We only have to reach up and soak Him in. Sometimes our thorns prick Him, and He feels the pain only a father can feel from the thorns of a child. But despite the pain, He keeps trimming us, making us into the person He wants us to be. We have to yield to the Master Gardener. Spring smells much sweeter when He takes control of the garden. After all, it's not our garden, it's His......
