Lavender & Lace

I’ve often heard the phrase;

“Rotten fruit will fall by itself.”

And I was recently meditating on this idea when I realized something…

God is THE gardener.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. He made a garden in which he placed the man and the woman.

And Jesus constantly makes reference to gardens, and vines, and fruit…so it got me thinking.

If someone is considered bad fruit; rotten enough, to fall of its own accord, then hallelujah that God is the master gardener.

Because I myself have been labeled by this quote.

People who watched my life noticed that I did indeed fall.

They saw, in real time, what it looked like for God to take me to the woodshed and discipline me. (And yes, it was as bad as it looked from the outside.)

Because that’s what a loving father does. He disciplines those He loves. If He didn’t love me then He would have just let me continue living in my sin and suffering day in/day out. Rotting from the inside out.

But no. He took me out of the situation I chose. The situation He turned me over to. And brought me into the wilderness and watched me wander around like a distressed, blind and deaf, animal. Not because He didn’t love me, but because He knew it was ultimately the most loving thing He could do.

And when I fell, I fell hard.

I laid there in the midst of hopelessness, grief and despair, for a very long time. I started to question everything I had ever known. I wrestled with my purpose and whether or not I should even continue my life.

I lost it all.

But it was there in the dust. In the darkness. It was there at rock bottom, that God met me.

In His tender, loving, hands he carefully lifted me out of the dust…stinking, oozing and rotting…

And he smiled.

Because any good gardener knows, that rotting fruit holds the most viable seeds. Rotting fruit is the best fertilizer.

God, the master gardener, gathers rotting fruit. The fruit others mock, and condemn. The fruit people turn their noses up at, and walk around. He gently gathers them up and places them in new soil, tends to them with loving compassion, waters them with eternal waters…and helps them grow.

So in a sense, people are right when they say; “Rotten fruit will fall by itself.” But that doesn’t mean it is the end of the story.

Redemption is truly possible for those considered “lost causes” by the world.

Hope exists for those who feel “too far gone”

Because Jesus came to seek and to save that which was lost.

I didn’t think I was worthy of being saved, and there are days I still don’t. But He constantly reminds me that I have been washed and have been made new. Grafted into the vine of Christ himself.

And I am thankful for the discipline.

I am thankful that He didn’t just leave me where I was.

I’m thankful that I was the rotting seed that was lifted up out of that dusty forgotten place and planted in greener pastures.

Hallelujah!

Because if there is hope for me, there is hope for anyone.

Jesus says, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener…You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. 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.”

John 15:1-4

Thank you Jesus, for letting me fall.

Now, let’s see what kind of fruit this little ol’ seed can produce!