Listening to the radio, I stopped at this station with a preacher talking about pain and life. He said "I don't know who to attribute it to," so I don't feel bad about not attributing it to him either, " but I heard this quotation once: He's never closer to the vine then when he's pruning the branches." Sure, I guess I could go with that. I think that there are lots of other times as well, especially the lows, lonely times, frightened times...
I hope that God isn't pruning with frightened times--I felt the closeness of God when I walked in on my trashed apartment moments after it was burglarized. I also felt a different closeness of God when my father had a massive heart attack and almost died, when I decided to move across the country for college, when so many things had gone awry in a year that one night I just about lost my mind, I felt him there too.
Brother Lawrence wrote "Practising the Presence of God" and talked about cognizance through the moments of each day and continually practicing awareness of God in the present moment. And it is a wonderful and transformative idea when we begin to realize the care and love God feels for us in the mundane moments of laundry folding and making toast but there is a different depth in those other moments. Maybe because we are raw and vulnerable and all our emotions are accessible. Maybe because He knows our need and just really really wants to help. Maybe it is as simple as fulfilling promises in places like the Beatitudes and other places in the Bible.
I hope that God isn't pruning when He is close in those painful places, maybe it is all the same thing, all used for good...His love does change me. I guess then it doesn't matter so much about all the details, it just matters that He comes close.
