Jacob 5 Pruning and Digging Hurt

Tears were close as I sat in a hospital waiting room for the 2nd time this week, waiting.  Waiting for another loved one to come out of surgery.  Fears and worries assailed me: the health of the person, the staggering hospital bill just for outpatient surgery, the pain of recovery, the effectiveness of the surgery, the steps to take afterwards.

Olive Trees at Garden of Gethsemane, Michelle; 1992

While waiting I opened my Book of Mormon and started reading where I had left off.  I read Jacob 3 and Jacob 4 and was only starting to find peace.  Unexpectedly, it was Jacob 5, the very long allegory of the olive tree, that calmed my troubled heart.

I personalized Jacob 5 and visualized the olive tree representing me individually rather than the whole house of Israel throughout all time.

I was being pruned and nurtured, even as I sat in the hospital.  The untamed fruit in my life was being cut out and burned through the trials of life right now.  The wholesome good fruit was being developed.  The gardener was neither leaving me nor giving up on me.  Rather, the gardener loves me and wants all my fruit to be good.

The pruning, digging, and nourishing were done with purpose in Jacob 5.  They were not random acts.  Likewise, the pruning and digging in my life is done with purpose.  They are not capricious, arbitrary acts of a vengeful God.  He knows what kind of fruit he wants me to bear.  He knows what needs pruned to bring about that fruit.  Some of the pruning I bring on myself through wrong choices.  Some of the pruning God does because in the end knows what he wants me to be.

Therefore, with diligence and patience and trust in the gardener, "by and by [I] shall pluck the fruit, which is most precious, which is sweet above all that is sweet" (Alma 5:42) and I "shall have eternal life, which is the greatest of all the gifts of God" (D&C 14:7).