Then and Now: Pruned

THEN, KELLER, TEXAS, 2010:

I realized it as I spoke the words aloud. "I'm tired of being pruned. I just want to grow." Life, God, all of it, has wrecked me and I'm tired. Is this how it feels when the shears cut deep?

Mom had a lilac tree out by the swing. The swing that creaked, that swayed when we shared tears, dreams and stories. The Lilac Tree was a gift. Lilacs bring my mother to life. She can smell them a mile away. So it was only fitting she had one of her own in the yard.

She tended it with care. I remember watching her in the evenings, fingers gently lifting the young branches, tucking soil around the new roots.

New roots take a while to find their homes. Especially on that slanted hillside.

One day we almost lost it entirely. An overeager landscaper sliced across the young sapling with a weed wacker. My mother cried, searching for the roots.

But they remained. Tiny thriving arms were still there, and they slowly began their work of growing back to the sky.

Not to be wounded again, the tiny tree was marked. We were sternly directed. The tree was not to go anywhere.

It grew. Slow. Tall. I started to learn how the whole process worked. At the right time, my mother would stand proudly in front of the bush, its branches strong, suggesting at what's to come. She would pull out the large clippers, and start snipping.

Precisely. Intentionally.

Pruning it with the greatest ease and affection.

"But why?! It's so tall!" I would shout from the porch steps.

"It won't grow flowers without pruning!" She shouted back over her shoulder.

Cut. Cut. Cut.

What's a lilac bush without lilacs? Just a bush, I guess. Just something with lots of potential, but nothing actually worth admiring.

I find great comfort in the pruning. As painful as it is, it means he is standing near, breathing very close to my tired arms.

And very precisely and intentionally, the Master Gardener starts to prune.

So I can bear fruit someday. So there's something worth all the pain.

The pruning is always with love.

So yes, I'm tired of being pruned. I want it, but I'm tired of it too. I just want to grow. But I see now that the two go hand-in-hand.

Unless I just want to be another random plant among the brush.

I don't always desire self-discipline. It's one of those want to want to want. I'm thankful for grace in that my lack of desire for self-discipline only drives me to Jesus. After all, it's a fruit of the spirit, not of the flesh. It's not something I can produce out of choice, or even do well out of habit. It's something I have to allow and submit to the Spirit working in me.

That being said, when I ask, there's an answer. I beg for some fruit. I'm asking for my roots and the threads of life in me to go back to the Tree of Life, and not the one of good and evil. I don't need humanism or moralism. I need grace.

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NOW, UPSTATE NEW YORK, 2018:

This is our first spring in our new house. We bought this house in July, when the land had already yielded half of its floral fruit. Peonies only green in their stems. Tulip leaves standing alone.  But when we first looked at the property, it was mid-spring. What stood out most to us was the lilac bushes — three of them. Two around the house, one by the barn. Massive trees that would return again in their purple hues next spring. 

That next spring is now this spring. Lilacs seem to return again and again in my story. A mother who nurtured them. Trees that need pruning. Friends who bring their branches across thousand of miles. Old barns and century-old farmhouses.

A reminder that in its season, things bloom. In the right time, the hopes that were once a far off dream and only served as analogies and quiet hopes in glass mason jars in the dead of Texas heat, now grow outside of my bedroom window. The prayers I begged of God from an empty heart eight years ago now echo around my head and heart when I remember how faithful He's been.

I have had seasons of stretching my limbs from one direction to another, and watched as God pruned me from stem to trunk. With a sharp blade, I felt Him near. I’ve felt the stark cold hit my bare soul when all that I thought was alive fell off dead into a trash heap. And I’ve felt the fresh growth push against my skin, forcing the miracle of life against my own grief. I’ve seen something bloom bigger, brighter, better than if I had held onto spindly, branches that produced nothing but instead only sucked life from my core.

So as the lilac climbs the side of our house and I can reach out my bedroom window to pick its branches, I give thanks. For the pruning. For the sharp amputations of heart and soul branches. For the miracle of how he turns light and living water into real stuff, and how He kept me alive through all of it.

This year I hope to open our windows, lift the screen and take a deep breath of those floral blooms.

And when the season ends, we will prune. 

The Quiet Faithful Life of Ruth Lee

Ruth Lee.

I’ve heard that name since I can remember remembering. My sister was given her middle name because of Ruth Lee. Her name is echoed in our family stories and probably will be until the day I die.

She was the thin-framed woman who lived across the street from the wild Knefley family. My mother’s wild family to be exact. My mom was one of 8 kids in a family of Irish Catholics. They have stories of reckless adventures, Grandpa’s songs and family sing-alongs around the old piano, bruises and scars from siblings who still claim they were in the right, and the laughter and grief of a home that was full of people who really needed the Gospel to change their lives. Mom tells how my grandfather would wake the house to his rendition of “The Burning of Rome” and there’s probably no better choice of songs since he was the one sitting on the proverbial hillside watching the pain that he himself caused. They were a quintessential Irish family — loudly singing, full of life, keeping secrets, and hoping for a new day of freedom.

And then there was Ruth Lee. Mom tells me how Ruth would bake them cookies, welcome each of their ruddy faces into her home, and tell them again and again that she was praying. She was a safe haven from the stormy seas of home life and she went to her knees day after day, praying for that home.

Mom would tell us this as we grew up.

“Ruth Lee prayed for me to know Jesus,” she’d say and I’d nod my head, probably rolling my eyes and full of a 15-year-old’s rebellion and angst.

“Yes, mom," I'd reply. "You always tell us about her."

Ruth Lee wouldn’t live to see my mom come to faith in a small country church in upstate New York. She wouldn’t see my mother walk my older sister and two brothers, all under the age of 10, to that humble white building on the hill on the way out of town. She wouldn’t see my grandparents confess faith in Christ only years before their death. She wouldn’t see my sister lead worship and raise 8 kids to know the Lord. She wouldn’t see my one brother travel to Tanzania as a missionary, return to lead worship for thousands and then plant a church. She wouldn’t see my other brother pursue ministry in bible school, lead kids, students, worship, trips and ultimately become a pastor of a church in northern New York. She wouldn’t see me, stumbling my way toward grace, serving in ministries and missions throughout the years and now working on staff at my church. She wouldn’t see each of us teaching our children, day after day, whispering their names in prayer as they sleep.

She wouldn’t know that every time she baked cookies, opened her kitchen door to the Knefley kids who probably made a ruckus in her quiet country home, and then whispered their names in her prayers, that she was doing holy work.

But really, isn’t that what it is? I don’t know what dreams Ruth Lee had for her life. I don’t know what grief she suffered or what hopes she never saw come to pass. I don’t know how she decorated her kitchen or how clean her floors were. Yet she is not forgotten. And it’s not for her beauty, her wit, her food or her style, but the faithfulness of someone who kept their hand to the plow and when no one was watching, stayed faithful anyway.

She was doing Kingdom work when she’d pour another glass of milk. She was doing Kingdom work when she’d pat my mama’s curls. She was doing Kingdom work when she said those simple words, “I’m praying.” In her quiet, nearly invisible life, Ruth Lee was faithful. 

You don’t need a platform. You don’t need everyone to know your name. You don’t need the crowds to gather to hear you sing, or the pats on the back after you speak. You don't need the attention of a million followers, the clicks of the crowds, or even the praise from the people who see you day in and day out. The amazing and good news about this upside-down kingdom of our God is that you can be the most effective, the most faithful, and leave the greatest legacy simply by being faithful in your quiet life. The ones who impress the least, who live in small towns and are forgotten by 99.9% of the world are the ones who change generations.

I’m here because Ruth Lee prayed. A faithful woman sowed seed and someday when I get home, I’ll find her in the middle of the crowd and through my tears say “Thank you.” She’ll probably be so taken with Jesus that she won’t even hear me.

Be faithful in your field. Bake some cookies. Love those wild kids. Whisper their names at bedtime before the Lord. Trust Him with the rest.

Surviving the Cold, Hard Winter

(Excerpt from the unedited, unpublished book that may or not ever see the full light of day.)

Have you ever seen the Northern Lights? Aurora Borealis. The very name feels like a dance of words.

One of my favorite books is a child's picture book — The Fiddler of the Northern Lights. It's about a man who plays his fiddle on a frozen pond and that's when the sky comes out to dance for him. He was a man of mystery and appeared out of nowhere. I swore I heard the fiddler that night. I could feel his strings bending and singing as I locked my gaze on heaven.

In the middle of February in Point Hope, Alaska, "cold" didn't just mean that you filled a mug with coffee to keep your hands toasty. Cold meant you kept track of the minutes on the clock while you were outside. The locals gave us their fur-lined coats and warned us not to wander around at night because the polar bears were hungry. They were known for hiding behind doors, ready to pounce. They told us the story of one who stood back against the wall outside of a bar in the night, looking to snatch an unlikely patron who tried to stumble home. So we stayed indoors mostly — taking the occasional outing to speed off on snowmobiles, get thrown about on dog sleds and walk under the giant whale ribs that lined the border of the cemetery.

But there was the one night when the world swirled with wonder.

I put on my coat, the one I brought. The thinner one. The one that definitely wasn't designed to withstand an Arctic chill. And then I put on the coat they gave me. The fur and skin. The one heavy with warmth and history.

I cracked the door slightly to see, and yes, there it was. The colors of another world seemed to break into the atmosphere, larger than life itself. Silent waves crashing against the black sky, spilling into one another like a watercolor wash. The milky way under a river of green.  I wasn’t sure if I felt fear or awe, or if that was what Godly fear was — wonder and joy while shaking in my boots. I pulled the fur close to my face. Five minutes. That’s all I had before I was in danger of any kind of damage to my skin. So covered my mouth, and I breathed in deep. I smelled the icy air. I stood alone in the snow just off the steps from the porch and I looked up.

I know I felt small. In my memory, I feel small. If there was ever a moment I wanted to fall on my knees and pray for my heart to be one with space, and the moon; the stars and the sky and the One who created it all, it was then.

Five minutes came to a close and I stepped back inside. It’s no wonder that the coat of another man's work and hunting was my cover in that season. I felt a lot like Jacob. I felt like it was possible God was going to forget about blessing me. I couldn’t get things right and I was pulling on someone else’s beliefs of faith and prosperity and pretending they were mine. I pulled on fur like Esau’s arms and reached toward Heaven, asking if He’d accept me that way. Could I possibly perform enough to get him to accept me? Under the electric gaze of heaven, I begged.

But I know now, that wasn't what He was after. He saw me already. I stood under that sky and asked Him where He was. If God was here in this land, He surely didn’t show His faithfulness in green trees and ripening fruit. He showed it in the provision of animals; in the spilling of blood. Heaven was reminding me then that if I wanted to see the beauty of God, some blood had to be spilled. I needed the protection and the cover from a life that was not my own. But I didn't see that then. I saw only barren land and emptiness in my heart. In the earth where the permafrost stays, you keep the things that nourish. That's what the native people did. So I dug into my heart and I tried to find a place to put God. But I felt like it was getting colder and harder by the day.

And the polar bears were everywhere.