Fruit Comes through Struggle (#364 of 365+)

I’m posting this on Sunday, September 26, 2010—the day after I actually had this devotional. I just didn’t have enough time to blog about it yesterday. On Friday evening my husband picked me up from work. He found me sitting in my office with the lights turned off and tears streaming down my face. I had never experienced such a painful migraine… It felt as if my entire head was being stabbed at and that my skull was about to crack open because of the brain swelling... It was really bad.

After we got home I went directly upstairs. My husband brought me water and two Advil. I swallowed all of it, lay down on the bed, cradled my head, and prayed to God to give me relief. After about an hour of cringing and crying, I felt a cold sweat come over me and I passed out. I awoke an hour or two after that, finally headache-free. Thank the Lord...

I drank plenty of water that evening and slept in late on Saturday morning. When I finally got up, showered, and read my devotional, it was almost lunchtime. I helped my teen son complete his Chemistry worksheets and then fed him lunch. I proceeded to spend the majority of the afternoon driving him around town so he could take the photos he needed for a special Geometry assignment due on Monday. By the time he finished the Geometry scrapbook, date night had arrived! My husband treated us to sushi at our favorite place and then we got ice cream and came home. My son had vacuumed, dusted, and done a couple of other chores while we were out! He went to bed and my husband and I settled in to watch the original Buffy: The Vampire Slayer movie on Netflix. With our warm doggies snuggling close, I couldn’t help falling asleep on the couch within the first fifteen minutes of the movie. Oh well, I have a feeling I didn’t miss much!

“This is to my Father's glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples” (John 15:8)

Joni said her friend Tim is a master of growing rare grapes. He taught her that planting grape vines in good fertilized soil is actually counter-productive because it results in less fruit and more leaves. In order to get the kind of production he wants—more sweet grapes—he puts the vine under duress. When it has to struggle for every nutrient it can find, it won’t waste all that effort on growing leaves. It will direct the flow of nutrients to grow a bounty of beautiful grapes.

I think the Lord gave me this story about Tim’s grapevines so I could better understand what happened to me on Friday. I struggled and prayed so much because of my migraine that, when I was finally free of it, I felt more energy and “life” than I’ve felt in quite a while. Joni called it a “bruising of blessing” and said “you won’t bear a crop” without “trials and struggles, disappointments and setbacks.” It was quite a lesson to learn and it will stay with me for a very long time.

This is my second-to-last devotional in a year-long series. I’ll take my time writing and editing the last one but I’ll try to post it by the end of today.

Lord, thank you for answering my prayers and leading me in the way you want me to go. Your presence is my very breath of life. Amen.