Back in April, a group of us were asked to plant a new hedge around the main building in the project for the disabled. There was already a part of the hedge around it, and we needed to complete the other half of the building. So one of the workers, Johnny, took a machete and began to cut off a few large branches from the hedge that was already there. Then, he took each of those branches and cut them into smaller sticks. “Here,” he said. We were going to plant these sticks in the ground. They were going to grow into a new hedge.
Now, being from the city, I never knew you could do that, I never knew you could cut a plant like that and just plant its branches in the ground and a whole new plant grows up. You mean roots just start growing out of the bottom of these things? They look like splinters from an ax gone wild. But that’s why he cut up the branches into small sticks that looked nothing like a hedge and more like they were dead and useless. New ground was ready, and he did it so he could can plant new life in it.
When God began to call me, I started to be cut off from a lot of people and also old habits. I left a lot of old friends. I left the work I was doing, the money and the home. But the hardest was leaving my girlfriend. Every time I went to try be alone and listen to God she would call. It’s a painful process when God is dividing. But I had to become a little stick so God could plant me in new ground that was ready. He was forming new life.
When God comes, there will be a cut in our life. Someone or something will be cutoff, there will be a division. We will be separated from someone or something in our life. You may feel like a little stick, with no roots, maybe you feel useless. It will be painful. But remember that God is cutting so He can plant again.
New ground is ready.
And new life.
“I have come to set the earth on fire,
and how I wish it were already blazing!
There is a baptism with which I must be baptized,
and how great is my anguish until it is accomplished!
Do you think that I have come to establish peace on the earth?
No, I tell you, but rather division.
From now on a household of five will be divided,
three against two and two against three.” (Lk 12:49-51)
ALM 