Life Lessons From A Church Farm

When I was growing up in California I had the privilege, then seen as a burden, of yearly going to pick grapes. That responsibility expanded when I received the priesthood and had the chance to prune the vineyard. I will never forget about how it felt to take the branches of the vineyard and wrap them around the supports. I learned that the branches were more pliable than I would have thought. Some of the longer and older ones would almost sound like I was breaking them. Other branches, although healthy, would need to be cut because the roots could only handle producing strong fruit from a limited number of branches.

At harvest time you could tell who had pruned the vineyard properly and who had not. The rows that had been pruned properly would produce large and juicy grapes that would make delicious raisins. Those that were trimmed too far back or not enough would produce smaller grapes. These would taste bitter or would not produce the large raisins desired because they were too small.

Through out my life I have thought much about the importance of the pruning process in my own life. I have had and do have many different responsibilities and each responsibility comes with things to do. At times I have added responsibilities that I thought were important or seemed fun. These additional "branches" took away some of the strength that I would otherwise have been able to give to more important areas of my life. Overall in these times in my life of "overgrowth" the harvest of my life at that time could be considered mediocre at best.

This morning as I wrote in my journal I felt to look at my life and realized there were things I needed to prune. As I go through this process I know there will be older branches that will crack as I re-align them and young branches that although healthy are not needed and will only take away from the harvest I seek in the end. I am grateful for the lessons and experiences of my youth and am grateful to the master gardener who helps me to "be what he wants me to be".