The Quarter-Inch Leaf and the Master's Pruning Shears

Walking through the kitchen today, my eyes caught something completely out of place on the clean floor. It startled me for a second, so I bent down to pick it up. It was a tiny, dried-up leaf, maybe a quarter of an inch long.

It was a remnant of our gardenia bush.

Before leaving for Europe, that four-foot bush—which had given us such beautiful flowers and rich scents in the spring—was completely overrun by aphids. The infestation was so bad that my mother actually threw her own plant out just to protect the rest of her garden. I didn't want to throw ours away, so I took the shears and pruned it aggressively, cutting it all the way down to its bare branches. It looked completely dead.

I have prayed several times since then: Lord, let this tree be a reflection of my life. You have pruned me down to the bare branches. If it is Your will, revive this tree in all its glory.

Curiosity got the better of me today, so I researched what happens when you cut a gardenia down that drastically. It turns out, a broadleaf evergreen shrub like a gardenia has dormant buds under the bark that can sprout new growth even after a drastic rejuvenation pruning. If it was healthy before the cut, it has a 70% to 90% chance of survival. Because we live in the warm climate of St. Petersburg, Florida, the plant recovers easily.

In fact, it only takes 4 to 6 weeks for latent buds to swell and push out the first tiny green leaves. Just as the research promised, our bush is already sprouting new green life. It will take 2 to 3 years to completely rebuild its canopy and return to its full, heavy-blooming glory, but the hope of restoration is physically sitting on the porch. It is a profound symbol of my faith.

But finding that tiny, dried-up leaf on the kitchen floor today was a humbling reality check.

God has done a massive pruning in my life. He took the shears to the arrogance, the selfishness of my feral 40s, and the things that were quietly destroying me from the inside out. He stripped me down to the limbs. But that quarter-inch dead leaf on my clean floor was a stark reminder that even after a massive pruning, there is still a little bit of sin and defiance lingering in me. There are still tiny remnants of earthly desires that need to be swept away.

Today, I started the Book of Proverbs, and the wisdom within the first few chapters speaks exactly to this uncomfortable, beautiful process of being cut back by the Master Gardener.