its really not about the fruit

Several years ago we lived in a rural area of Cecil County, Md. The area is called Fair Hill and it is truly an appropriate description of the beauty of the place. Especially before the building frenzy began there. The house we bought was my dream home.

It sat on two acres of land, most of which was a sloping front yard. The yard dropped gently to the edge and then quickly fell sharply to the road. Sitting on our front steps we could watch the cows graze just beyond the fence across the winding country road, and beyond the cows the creek gurgled and danced along in a wonderful display most days. Beyond the creek were acres and acres of horse farm and then just a few houses dotted the distance before the trees began to poke up high across the horizon. It was really a relaxing place to live.

In the spring I loved to sit out on the front lawn in the evening and watch as the stars popped out. The darkness of the sky was so much deeper without the lights of town and we never got tired of seeing the brilliance and multitude of stars twinkling above. And across our little valley and up our hill there would float haunting melodies from the ancient church just at the end of the road where the keeper of the historic building would practice his bag pipes from early April into May. He would practice in the afternoons and sometimes in the early evening and I would throw open the windows so I didn't miss a note if I couldn't be outside for the daily concert.

We bought the house in March and began that spring to clean up the overgrown yard. The hill across the front was covered with briers and weeds. The forsythia down the side was a tangle of yellow beauty. The mimosas and cherry blossoms were stunning in bloom. But in the back corner of the yard was a massive tangle of vines. We had found one tree in front of the mess that we were sure was an apple tree. But we had no idea what was under the maze of vines.

We spent most of the spring digging out the briers and tearing down the vines. By summer the front hill, although full of ruts, was beginning to show promise, and the vines were gone. To our surprise we found an orchard under all that mess. I believe there were 7 trees to start with. Seven peach trees sitting in the back corner just waiting to be discovered.

We were very excited at the prospect and set about learning what to do to save them if we could. We pruned them and sprayed them and fertilized them and waited. The first year produced very little fruit and what did develop rotted long before it ripened. Two of the trees died that year and one was not looking very good. But we hoped.

We were also tending the apple tree with care which did the same thing with its fruit. We didn't really care whether we ate the fruit at that point. We were just excited to be growing things and the yard was alive with such a variety of birds. A few species seemed to enjoy the mimosas the most. One day I counted more than 70 gold finches playing in the branches. We hung a hammock between the two and would lay quietly and watch as the hummingbirds would come in flocks. I had never seen a group of hummingbirds like that before and have never seen it since, but they would descend upon the mimosas in a flock and then flit from pink puff to pink puff, dancing and humming their wings all around me. It was amazing. It was perfect.

The fruit trees seemed to attract some birds, but not enough to be a nuisance and we thought that was curious since the yard was chock full of any number of different birds. They seemed to know the trees were sick and other than a nest each year in the apple tree, we had no bird problems.

The following year we hoped we would see better fruit, but it was the same thing. Fruit flowers, turned to small fruit, growing to almost full size and then they would drop off the tree still unripe but rotted. No worms, no mildew, just rotten from the inside out.

Again the third year, the same story, although the fruit seemed to get a little closer to ripe and the trees themselves were looking healthy and full of good leaves. It was a pretty, inviting little orchard. You would never guess that the fruit was no good.

By the fourth year our front yard had been completely filled in with fresh dirt and sod, the corner had a lovely little rock garden, and we felt like we lived in a little slice of heaven. The orchard was looking beautiful and the apple tree was full of lovely little flowers. We harvested good apples that year and enjoyed the fruit of our patience and hard labor. The peaches were not producing anything edible though. They looked just like good healthy peach trees, but they only seemed capable of producing rotted, useless fruit.

When we moved away from there five years after moving in we still had not seen any sign of healthy fruit. But the last season of the growing the peaches stayed on the trees longer, grew in weight, and had begun to look pickable and then they fell. Almost overnight it seemed they rotted. We had hoped this last year would be the year. But we moved. I don't know if they would have grown good fruit that last year for the new owners tore them out and put in a built in swimming pool in that corner of the yard. I knew it was their right to do with their new home, but I actually cried. We had worked so hard on that little corner and were so hopeful that it would bless the new owners with the fruit we had looked forward to all those years. But all our work was worthless.

Or was it? We never got to eat the fruit, but we spent many an hour learning and enjoying the yard in a way that we would never have chosen to do if that little orchard had not existed to begin with. We worked together and had the satisfaction of seeing it go from almost dead to four (in the end we only had four) beautiful little blooming trees.

I'm glad we didn't tear them out and toss them into the fire right away. I think sometimes my own healings have come slowly like those of the peach trees. Year after year the Lord graciously watered me with His word, "I have carved you into the palms of my hands and your walls are continuously before me." "You are the apple of His eye." "He delights over his people (and you are his people.)" Over and over, year after year he watered, he pruned, he poured good fertile things into the soil of my life. Season after season my fruit seemed to fall off too early, rot from the inside, not quite serve the purpose it was supposed to serve. But the Gardener tended my branches and lovingly removed the vines that choked me, covered me with the protection that allowed me to grow stronger and able, and removed the dead leaves, branches, and fruit to keep me growing healthier. And in the process I learned that the fruit when it did come in full and ripe, would bless others, would bless me, would bless Him. He was blessed simply by me though. Just as those trees standing in their little grove became a beautiful sight to me even though they never produce one piece of usable fruit, so it is with God and His people.

You don't have to be anything or anyone to earn your place in his love. He loves you because he is love. His desire is for you to know him and to know him deeply, intimately. Your fruit will become useful, ripe, ready for others, and it will bless him also. But it isn't the fruit He is seeking. It's you. Just you.

Zephaniah 3:17 The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing.

Yup, he prunes and that's not a comfortable or fun process - getting rid of dead or diseased things or things that are growing wrong. Yup, he will spray us with the right mixture of grace to protect us from the things that would chew us and destroy us. Yup, he will pour into the soil of our lives the things that fertilize and feed our roots and spirits. But everything he does, he does with the intention of developing you into a strong and healthy person, connected and dependent on his love and protection. He is mighty to save.

3/5/12  I reread this today and was reminded what a blessing it is just to belong to Him.  Something new soon, but for today I hope you enjoyed last year's march 5 entry.  Blessings, Cheri