Copy / Paste

I want to quickly post this.

I have so, so so, SO much to say about it, but the story alone is pretty long, and I want to make sure I never forget it. I found it here:

I thought the worst day in my life was the day I was body surfing at Laguna Beach and in a split second became paralyzed from the neck down and would have to live the remainder of my life on life support. I seemed to have lost so much -- the use of my body, my profession as a teacher, my callings in the Church, and I thought, my ability to be an effective husband and father. I didn't spend much time dwelling on it, but I did think from time to time why this had happened to me.

Part of the answer has come to me over the years from a talk given by Hugh B. Brown, a former general authority and counselor in the first presidency. The entire talk which was given many years ago was reprinted in its entirety in the January, 1973, New Era. It is worth reading.

President Brown as a young man was living on a farm he had purchased up in Canada. It was run down and a currant bush on the property had grown to a height of 6 feet. It had all gone to wood, and no longer was producing fruit. Taking his pruning shears he walked over to the currant bush to prune it. He then said:

"... I cut it down, and pruned it, and clipped it back until there was nothing left but a little clump of stumps. It was just coming daylight, and I thought I saw on top of each of these little stumps what appeared to be a tear, and I thought the currant bush was crying. I was kind of simpleminded (and I haven’t entirely gotten over it), and I looked at it, and smiled, and said, “What are you crying about?” You know, I thought I heard that currant bush talk. And I thought I heard it say this: “How could you do this to me? I was making such wonderful growth. I was almost as big as the shade tree and the fruit tree that are inside the fence, and now you have cut me down. Every plant in the garden will look down on me, because I didn’t make what I should have made. How could you do this to me? I thought you were the gardener here.” That’s what I thought I heard the currant bush say, and I thought it so much that I answered. I said, “Look, little currant bush, I am the gardener here, and I know what I want you to be. I didn’t intend you to be a fruit tree or a shade tree. I want you to be a currant bush, and some day, little currant bush, when you are laden with fruit, you are going to say, ‘Thank you, Mr. Gardener, for loving me enough to cut me down, for caring enough about me to hurt me. Thank you, Mr. Gardener.’ ”

Time passed. Years passed, and President Brown was in England with the British Canadian forces fighting in World War I. He was well thought of as an officer and was in line to be promoted to General. He knew in his heart, as did his fellow officers that the appointment to General should be his. President Brown related how he was so proud of himself, his achievement, and how much he looked like a general and obviously deserved to be one. Instead, he was called in to meet with the commanding general of the British Canadian troops in England and was informed that he was being sent back to Canada, would maintain his current rank, and would be training troops instead of fighting. He later learned the reason for this action was that he was a Mormon. Mormons were not highly thought of at that time and he had achieved the highest rank any Mormon had ever attained in the British Canadian Army.

After receiving the bad news on what he then thought was one of the worst days of his life, he said "... and when I got to my tent, I was so bitter that I threw my cap and my saddle brown belt on the cot. I clinched my fists and I shook them at heaven. I said, “How could you do this to me, God? I have done everything I could do to measure up. There is nothing that I could have done—that I should have done—that I haven’t done. How could you do this to me?” I was as bitter as gall.

And then I heard a voice, and I recognized the tone of this voice. It was my own voice, and the voice said, “I am the gardener here. I know what I want you to do.” The bitterness went out of my soul, and I fell on my knees by the cot to ask forgiveness for my ungratefulness and my bitterness..."

At the time of my accident everything in my life was going so well. My family and I were living "after the manner of happiness." There was not a cloud on the horizon and the wonderful dreams we shared regarding our future seemed righteous and achievable and what the Lord would have us do. However, His ways are not always our ways, and the pruning process began. I was like the currant bush that had been pruned. There were tears in my eyes and in my heart. I felt that I had been cut down to nothing and it hurt badly. I didn't clench my fists and shake them at God, crying out in bitterness, "Why did this happen to me," but my heart was broken. I was devastated.

As I consider the years that have gone by since the accident, just like the currant bush, though the pruning was very painful, it was necessary for me to be able to fulfill a mission the Lord had in store for me that I never could have anticipated, aspired to, or envisioned. In order to fulfill that mission I had an important lesson to learn that the "Gardner" knew that for me at least, I could only learn through the pruning.

The lesson I had to learn, and thankfully every one doesn't need to be paralyzed and on life support to learn it, was stated by the Savior to his apostles just before going into the Garden of Gethsemane. "I am the vine, ye are the branches. He who abideth in me and I in him bringeth forth much fruit, for without me ye can do nothing." [John 15:5, emphasis added]

My individualized pruning by the master "Gardener" has taught me this valuable lesson -- I am nothing, and can do nothing, without Christ -- the "true Vine."

If we learn no other lesson during our lifetimes than without Christ we can do nothing, our time here upon this Earth will not have been wasted.