Tag: fruit

Weekend Wisdom

Weekend Wisdom: Chasing Vines

Michele Kearns

This is one of the quotes that stood out while reading Beth Moore’s latest book. I will write a review once I’ve finished it.

Your fruit will outlast your life. You can’t always see the effects because they are eternal, but one day you will. One day you will see that you couldn’t have been more significant if you’d tried.

Beth Moore
Chasing Vines, Finding Your Way to an Immensely Fruitful Life
pg 48

Bio: Michele Kearns is the founder and HUG© (Hope Unites Globally) Award-Winner of JoyReturns. She shares her widowhood adventures hoping to inspire widows to move through grief and rebuild their lives. A graduate of Kent State University with a Bachelor’s degree in communications, she’s currently using those skills as a virtual logistics contact center representative for a Fortune 100 company. She’s also managed call center teams, co-facilitated a grief support group, and helped small businesses with various writing assignments. Michele is a bookworm, and a lover of history, music, chocolate, red roses, and golden retrievers. She is also the amateur photographer behind the blog OgleOhio.com

grief

{ Day 12 } 31 Tricks to Scare Away the Grief Monster – PRUNE

Michele Kearns

Scripture Quote

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.

John 15:2

God pruned your life. He knew your husband’s time line. He knew his moment of birth and moment of passing since before the world was born.

Your eyes saw my unformed body;
    all the days ordained for me were written in your book
    before one of them came to be.

 

Psalm 139:16

Your life is not over because your husband’s timeline ended. On the contrary, God is giving you the opportunity to do more with life, more than what was possible with your husband. Seize the opportunity to grow and flourish in your new life.

Yes, it stinks that you and your husband will not grow old together. Joe and I had 14 ¾ years as husband and wife. In God’s eyes it was enough for each of us to grow into the person He needed us to be before He got out the pruning shears. Joe had to go live in heaven so I would continue to grow here.

Pruned Quote

Now It’s Your Turn

Once you get through the initial shock and start putting together a new life, you will discover the need to prune different branches of your life. Pruning the necessary areas is forward progress. Those areas could include career, hobbies, surroundings and unfortunately family and friends.You will determine which branches of your life need pruning as you travel through your grief journey.

Quickie Decsions

Do not make quick decisions about what area you are going to prune. If you make a hasty decision prune a friendship after a misunderstanding, it may take a long time for the relationship to grow back – if ever. Even if it does grow back, it will never be the same again.

You will not like pruning your life but remember, pruning is necessary because withered vines will not produce fresh fruit.

Resource: Today’s post at WidowsChristianPlace.com in which Ferree Hardy writes about grief’s labor pains, fruit and how God sees widows.

Quote Meditation

Better to be pruned to grow than cut up to burn. 

John Trapp

10-10-2011_3by5Michele Kearns is the founder and HUG© (Hope Unites Globally) Award-Winner of JoyReturns. She encourages widows and educates society about grief and life as a widow by sharing her widowhood adventures. A graduate of Kent State University with a degree in communications, she has used her skills in the banking, collections, outdoor products and social media industries. Michele is a bookworm, lover of golden retrievers and an amateur photographer. You can see more of her photography at OgleOhio.com, where she is running the series 31 Days of Autumn in Ohio – because running a 31 Day series on one blog is not enough insanity. 

Uncategorized

Have A Verse 3 Week

Michele Kearns

(Author’s Note: I ended up with 2 posts publishing yesterday instead of one. ooopppssss!)

My friend prayed that I would be like a tree planted by water that bears much fruit. It is a wonderful thought and one I will cling to this week as it is going to be a tough one, but then every week is mentally tough when you are in between jobs. Trust me I feel like I am withering away because not everything I touch prospers.

So I will cling mightily to verse 3 of this Psalm this week and always. Along with Isaiah 43:19. 

May you have a Verse 3 kind of week and life.

Psalm 1

1 Blessed is the one
    who does not walk in step with the wicked
or stand in the way that sinners take
    or sit in the company of mockers,
2 but whose delight is in the law of the Lord,
    and who meditates on his law day and night.
3 That person is like a tree planted by streams of water,
    which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither—
    whatever they do prospers.

4 Not so the wicked!
    They are like chaff
    that the wind blows away.
5 Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
    nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.

6 For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous,

   but the way of the wicked leads to destruction.

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Coming tomorrow: I will announce the title of October’s special series.