Left with a barren orchid

I love flowers.  I love receiving flowers, putting them in a vase, placing them on my desk, and smiling every time I see them.  They bring me joy.  So what else would my sister bring me on my birthday but flowers?  She has bought me flowers on my birthday for as long as I can remember and this past year, she even bought me a living orchid.  It was stunning.  At one point and there were over 30 flowers and buds on the branches.  I was careful to follow the instructions that came with the orchid (place by a northern facing window, water every 7-10 days, don’t overwater, etc.) to prolong the life of this beloved birthday present.

I loved my orchid.  I loved seeing it on my desk everyday.  I loved knowing Sherry had thought about what I would like to have sitting on my desk while I worked on lesson plans, read books about “exceptional and diverse students,” and wrote papers about my philosophy of education. 

Somewhere in the chaos of packing my bags to go home for Christmas, I forgot about my orchid.  I did not take my orchid home, so it sat on my desk waterless for nearly a month. 

Upon arriving back at school, I saw my orchid and panicked.  Surrounding the pot and scattered on my desk were sad white flowers and buds.  I quickly watered my plant and tried to revive it during the ensuing days back at school.  It was a futile effort.  Slowly but surely, the remaining buds fell off the branches and I was left with a barren orchid. 

The orchid now sits on my desk with sad, brown, wilted branches.  It no longer brings me joy like it used to.  In fact, it makes me a little sad.  I am sad I failed to give it the attention and nurturing it needed to survive. 

I decided to do some research on how to bring my orchid back from the dead and discovered that I must cut off the dead branches.  They no longer bear me joyful white flowers, but only hang there with a sense of hopelessness.  According to what I found on google, by cutting off the dead braches, the orchid will use its energy and the nutrients it draws up to produce a new branch which (in time) will bring me flowers again.

Sometimes there are things in our lives that start by bringing us joy.  These can be hobbies, relationships, lifestyles, or other supposedly “good” things.  But sometimes these things turn from bringing us fruit in our lives to becoming a life-sucking branch. 

As hard as it is to face, sometimes we just need to cut off the branches that have stopped bearing us white flowers.  “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.  He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful” (John 15:1-2).

Let’s be honest here, sometimes cutting off those branches that used to seem so good can be extremely painful.  It took me a couple minutes to muster up the courage to cut off the dead, brown branches of my orchid.  How much more courage will it take to see the “branches” in my life cut off?  Even though these metaphorical dead braches hang in my life with the same sense of hopelessness that my orchid has, I hesitate to see them go.  The best thing we can do is to realize the benefit that will come from pruning.  By pruning away what has become unfruitful, we are given more strength to bear fruit where we can. 

When God prunes you, do not become bitter or resentful, but embrace what He has in store for the new life it will bring.

“He has made everything beautiful in its time” (Ecclesiastes 3:11).