New Growth

To dead-head a rose bush is to cut the withered flowers to stimulate growth and make room for the new beauty to come.

If a gardener is careful and gentle, the new growth survives and the rose bush continues to bloom and flourish; if a gardener is rough and impatient, the new growth quickly disappears along with the discarded, dead-headed flowers, falling to the ground, disintegrating into the mulch, and consequently, the future beauty of the garden fades as well.

I’ve spent the last year revising and editing my first book. Computers make this task easier than it’s ever been before. If I purposefully delete a sentence and then change my mind, the back arrow button immediately returns it to the screen. If I accidentally remove a paragraph, one gentle touch on the back arrow button and the words instantly reappear. In fact, I can delete an entire chapter, representing months of tedious work, and the back arrow button instantly refreshes what was once lost. When I edit and revise on my computer, I can always push the back button and return to where I once was.

But not in the garden.

New growth is the beginning bud of a flower yet to be seen, a scent yet to be savored, yet it can be extinguished before it has time to unfold in one brief snip of a well-meaning gardener’s sheers. When a gardener isn’t concentrating on the task of dead-heading, there is loss. It’s simple, really. Gardeners must pay attention to new growth when dead-heading old blooms.

This past week, while preparing my garden for company, I was not gentle with the new growth; instead, I cut and slashed and eliminated new flowers along with those whose lives were spent. And then I realized what I was doing and stopped.

A gentle reminder from a gracious God who continues to give direction in the midst of my day. I must be careful to avoid harming new growth as I discard what needs to be removed. In my life and certainly in the lives of others around me.

“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 NIV).

“But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these:

anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips.

Do not lie to each other,

since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self,

which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator”

(Col. 3:8-10 NIV).