Pruning the Branches!

For the last few weeks I have been feeling completely overwhelmed with everything that is on my to do list. I have a garage sale in a week, I am moving in three weeks, School ends in three and a half weeks, camp starts in 4 weeks, and I would like to fit a personal life in that schedule somewhere. Trying to do all of this alone has been hard and very stressful. In fact alot of this school year has been pretty stressful all around. Things were getting so bad at my house that I even managed to lose my cat. After a frantic search I eventually found her in a desk drawer I had just emptied out the night before. Though I think she was in there all night she was fine.

Wednesday night we had a prayer meeting at church and they prayed for me. The reoccurring theme that kept popping up was John 15:1-2. "I am the true vine and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful." At first all I could think was that of everything on my plate right there really isn't anything that I can just get rid of. I was kind of struggling with that all Wednesday evening. So in essence I was stressing myself out over what to get rid of so that I wouldn't be stressing out!

Then Thursday I had two blessings. The first a friend from church came over and cleaned my house for me. She asked Wednesday night if that would help me out and it was such a wonderful blessing. Then later that night Kimberly came over to help sort through a bunch of Tim and Lindsay's stuff that is still here. As she was helping with that I started going through old boxes of my own stuff. As I sorted through things it was a release of sorts to just through things away, or put things in the sale pile. To just be simplifying my life and getting rid of the junk. In other words pruning my branches.

You never really realize how much junk piles up until you have to move after being in the same place for over 2 years. As I went through all my stuff I realized how much value I have put on non-eternal things over the years. Now there are still somethings that I won't part with because they have great meaning to me, but it feels good to rid myself of all the clutter. Since I have be decluttering my house all of the other things that have to be done haven't seemed so overwhelming.

Maybe those words were referring to what I have already been doing or perhaps something more. I am not sure, but I do know that even in the midst of feeling totally lost and overwhelmed God has never left my side. He has been walking beside me all the way, and probably even carrying me most of the time.