Roses

I am a rose bush.
Capable of beautiful plentiful "fruit".
But to be healthy, to produce any thing of worth, to even stay alive, I have to be pruned.
And I don't like that.
Oh, I act like I am ok with it. I offer up all the dead branches on the surface.
But when the gardener goes digging, pushing aside the outside branches, and reaching down to the center...
first I try to hide, covering one branch with another, using leaves to cover withered fruit, dried out branches, disease. It doesn't work for long of course. The gardener knows where to look.
When he digs, I get uncomfortable. I try to protect myself. I lash out. My thorns defend me from the disturbance, the discomfort of being moved, shaped, having the dead cut away.
I think I am protecting myself from harm, pain.
Over time the threat of discomfort comes less frequently, as I wither away, colorless and empty.

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...Remain in me and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine.
John 15

I attempted to dead head my neglected rose bush today. It was a slow, painful process, that will never be finished.