am I being pruned??

Yesterday was a horrible day. My back pain, coupled with maybe my post-vacay blues as mentioned yesterday, coupled with some extreme defiance by my almost 2-year-old (which has never happened until yesterday) and an extreme emotional breakdown by my five-year-old made for one of the worst days that I can remember. And I was a horrible mother in response, I can say with complete confidence that I exhibited none of the fruits of the spirit and the fruits of the flesh were roaring and nasty.

There were points in the day when I literally ran/limped up the stairs crying and screaming that I couldn't do this anymore, and what I really wanted to do was to run out the door. To where? no where. There is no where I would rather be than here with this family that I love so much more than anything, yet I really feel like I am going through a majorly trying time.

I was struck a few mornings ago about a line in my "Experiencing God" Bible study: "You cannot rely on someone else's faith". I feel like maybe my faith is being questioned and doubted and I am being pruned and cut back because God is wanting me to really own my own relationship with him. So many times in my life I have doubted God, but my husband's faith, or my parent's faith, or my school's faith has always encouraged me to continue. I feel like all of this pruning and cutting & struggle is God trying to show Himself to me; Him trying to get me back to the roots of what our relationship is. But I am resisting...

I am scared that He is not real. I know that sounds like something a 3rd grader already understands and has wrested through, but I guess like so many things in my life, my zealousness overshadowed fundamental learning.

Take, for example, how I learned to dance. I danced ballet for two years age 7 & 8 and then quit to play softball. Fast forward 10 years and I want to dance again. I enroll in jazz 1, having no previous jazz experience, but the instructor immediately moves me to jazz 2, and suggests jazz 3 because of my "abilities". I did fine in the class with one major exception: I could pick up choreography in a snap, I could do 9/10 of the moves with no problem and I was at the top of my class... except for my lacking technique!! Any time a move got extremely tricky, or a double or triple was added to a single anything, I struggled. Where the rest of the girls in the class had had 12 years of basics, 12 years of getting to know ballet at its fundamental core, I was just a "natural" dancer, who tried to wing it, and then I struggled.

I continued dancing for 6 more years, all in advanced classes, and all with me struggling (majorly) to do any very technical move, and all with me winging it and barely getting by in those moments. Yet, I think many didn't even notice my struggle. The common person, the common viewer at a performance or show, said I was an exceptional dancer. Yet at my core, I knew that I was faking it. I am very good at looking like I do something well.

I believe I have also danced my way around my faith with God. Undoubtedly, there have been a few moments when I have felt His presence. While serving on the "mission field" in China, I felt God's presence and hand in my life more than anywhere else. Yet here, somehow, I often feel like those creeping feelings of doubt or insecurity are getting the best of me.

Yet, I know that God is wanting me to get back to the fundamentals of faith in Him-- NOT head knowledge, NOT Bible facts. As any good "Christian" I know most of those and have rattled them off to many people at many times. The fundamentals of the Christian faith is a relationship with Him!!

Although there are many issues in my life right now, many struggles, many difficulties, I cannot say that God has removed himself from my life and is no longer participating. What I must say is that God is actively involved in this time, yes, even in the daunting struggles and is pruning, cutting things back that I used to rely on, that I used to wing it with, and getting me back to a little branch connected to the Vine, strong and sturdy so that I can bear real fruit.

Abide in Him!! Remain in Him!!

John 15:1-5
¹ “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. ² He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes^[a] so that it will be even more fruitful. ³ You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. ⁴ Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. ⁵ “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.