patchwork quilts and fruit

My life is a patchwork quilt of ideas and thoughts, the material gleaned and scavenged from authors, musicians, philosophers, and other people who have walked and thought before me. I've stitched their ideas and thoughts together with the threads of my own perceptions...trying to create something that will one day be beautiful and complete. Sometimes I insert a piece of fabric only to take out the scissors later...the piece didn't quite fit right or add to the pattern of the quilt. At times, I can't see the whole pattern of the quilt. Sometimes a person comes along, looks at the quilt, and says, "Here...this piece goes right here." And I will let them add to the quilt because they stepped back, took a really good look, and saw what I was trying to create better than I did. There are other times when someone looks and says, "Look here...your stitches are a little off. Let's rip this piece out." And it hurts, but a lot of times they are right. I want to hold on to that piece, but it needs to be removed. I have been lucky enough to have friends tell me when a piece is ugly.

I think that God has been doing this a lot in my life recently...adding pieces and removing others. Jesus used another analogy for this process...a vine and its branches. The pruning is not easy, but it is necessary. Sometimes I feel like He prunes all the way to the stump, getting rid of all the dead branches and rotten fruit that I've been holding. Sometimes I feel like He prunes away fruit that looks good to me but needs to go away so that branch can bear a better bunch of grapes. And fruit can look good, but it doesn't necessarily mean that it is good fruit. It might taste bad or be made of plastic. Bearing plastic fruit is one of my worst fears...I want to be as real and honest as I can be. I think one of the worst things about being a medical student is that you have to look/act like you have it all together, even if you don't. I usually don't. This attitude has become more prevalent in Christian culture...please don't show me your struggles or sin, because then I might have to show you mine, and I prefer to hide behind my fig leaves. I'm not saying we should confess everything to each other, but maybe it's part of why we are supposed to fellowship with each other. It helps that were not the only person in the world who is being pruned. It helps to know that we're all attached to the same Vine.