Day 953: Cutting Lessons

My house has a tendency to look overgrown. There is a row of overfull, unwieldy azaleas which have been steadily taking over; rising above the windows, overshadowing the walkway, spilling their wildness into every available space. Across the street and to one side of us, beautifully cared-for yards display restrained and controlled beauty - a degree of elegance which, I will admit, I envy. 


For almost two years now, I have mentally planned how to make our landscaping more crisp, more purposeful. Thousands of times (in my head), I've trimmed the azaleas and transplanted them to a better part of the yard, installed beautiful plants, erected privacy fences, painted the house, ground up submerged stumps to flatten the yard, added trees, planted more grass, and generally increased the aesthetics of our outdoor presence. 


I'm not sure why it takes me SO long to do almost anything, but yesterday, after taking a plethora of "before" pictures, I attacked my collection of straggly azaleas with loving energy. As I tried to shape and cut back each bush to a modest size, I realized many of these azaleas were masquerading as full and healthy bushes. 


Oh, to be sure, the tops and sides were full and magnificent, but trim one branch and peer inside the bush and the true situation became clear. Every bush had one to four feet of plain, unadorned branch before fluffing out in a blanket of green. There was simply no way to prune or trim these azaleas without resulting in an array of odd-looking, leggy, top-heavy bushes.


With reluctance, I began to cut each branch, not where I preferred to cut it, but where it needed to be cut. It was painful and seemed massively unfair to reduce such large bushes to such small stubs. Poor azaleas, what did they do to deserve such treatment?


And then I saw an important lesson.


My reason for cutting the azaleas wasn't rooted in hatred or spite or the desire to curtail their rambunctious beauty. I was cutting the dead and unlovely parts, working from the inside, out. True, what appeared to be healthy loveliness on top was sacrificed in the process, but the end result will be a healthier, happier, fuller bush - from inside to outside. This was merely a preparation to move them to a new spot where they will thrive and be able to display their new growth and beauty in a much friendlier environment... no more sun crisping them from sunrise to sunset.


And so, with each snip and cut, a life lesson became obvious. 


Perhaps my weight-loss journey should not be viewed by me as a mostly failure interrupted by a brief success. Time to face the facts. Yes. I did lose 119 pounds in ten months. I looked awesome. I was a source of inspiration. People loved my story. I was a weight-loss poster child. Me, me, me. I was just. so. cool. And I did it all myself. Yay, me.


And where was God?


While the weight loss was absolutely real and absolutely fought for, it was a sparkly, amazing exterior that covered an inner self which had never learned to lose weight from the inside, out. My outside was thin, but my inside was still obese... in less than a year, 67.2% of the weight came back. 


I have to wonder if this setback is not really a setback, but God letting me know I cannot succeed long-term without His help. Perhaps my awesome, successful facade was clipped away to bring me to a stub just so I can do it all over again, but with God. Because now I know I cannot permanently change this horrible, embarrassing aspect of my life into a truly sparkly, amazingness without Him. 


I want an exterior which accurately reflects what is within.

We do not (and perhaps cannot) know the complete purpose of our lives. Our outside lives may appear complete and indicative of great growth and structure within, yet is hiding behind all that is dry, dead, and bereft-of-life. When the cuts come and it seems all is lost or being lost, remember the lesson the azaleas taught me. There is a greater purpose.

To be great, we must first be made small; all facades stripped away. Not to cause pain and misery, but to allow new growth.


photo from tdjordan.tumblr . com