The barren apple tree in my front yard has become one of the most powerful metaphors God has ever delivered to me.

The tree had not been pruned for dozens of years and was so overburdened that its branches had drooped to the ground, producing but a few small sour apples. A friend recently pruned the tree so severely that the branches became stubs with no green leaves left at all. He explained that the tree, while traumatized, would again blossom and bear much sweet fruit.

His words reminded me of one of Jesus' parables about gardening and life. Jesus said that people, like trees, grow wild and, without pruning, become sick and unproductive. God is the gardener who prunes us back into health and fruitfulness.

The shears in God's hands include failure, hardship, discipline, suffering and illness, which can leave us in such shock and pain that we are unable to see ahead to better times. Sometimes the pruning simply hurts like hell, and keeping a positive outlook in the face of such trauma can seem hollow and trite.

One of the most burdensome parts of ministry is seeing the severe and traumatic pruning that comes into people's lives — from women I love getting raped, to children I know being molested, to friends I hold dear fighting cancer, and men I know burying their wives. Indeed, my last few weeks have been spent watching people get their limbs and leaves ripped off.

All I see is a hopeless and ugly barrenness, and so I cling to Jesus' words that I am a branch and that he is the trunk, and as long as I stay connected to him I will endure the pruning, and one day bear much fruit, as will everyone else who has faith in his words.

Still, though I hold on to this simple but profoundly insightful parable, I, too, lose hope, and can spin into despair or anger, depending upon my mood. But, looking back on my life, I am convinced that it has been the harshest prunings that graciously have made me more fruitful in my relationship with God, my wife, my children, and other people God intends for me to love and to serve.

Because of this I am thankful for my seasons of pruning, although I would not have ever asked for them, and while enduring them would have done nearly anything to bring them to an end.

For those of you living in a season of pruning, I want you to know that I am praying for you, and that I am in that season with you. The past few days I've lost a lot of limbs and I don't seem to have many leaves left.

To keep faith in Jesus' words I get up every morning, and the first thing I do is walk out to the tree in my yard looking for hope and reminding myself that I am just like that tree.

Pastor Mark Driscoll is founder of the nondenominational Mars Hill Church in Ballard. He and four other columnists — the Rev. Patrick J. Howell, Rabbi Mark S. Glickman, the Rev. Patricia L. Hunter and Aziz Junejo — take turns writing for the Faith & Values page.

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