What I Wished More People Told me During a Pruning Season

“Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.” (John 15:2 KJV).

Side Note: This article is biblically based. If we don’t share the same faith beliefs, some things may not make sense but all things can happen to you, in a personal way, if you believe. If you ever wondered if Christians ever go through stuff, this article is for you too.

In other bible translations, the verb “prune” is used instead of the verb “purge.”

Let’s pay attention to the verb “purge.” In the strong’s concordance, it means to cleanse from filth and impurity, and to prune.

For the purpose of making this article more readable to more people, I will use the verb to prune because it also sounds better.

So being in a pruning season is pretty much a sign that you have been bearing some fruit, and more is coming. However, during the pruning season, things may seem stagnant, dry, and slow, on the outside. This looks this way because God is trying to remove things that won’t work in the next season. At the same time, there may be some things in your heart that need to be removed in order to enter into a new season.

“The heart is more deceitful than all else
And is desperately sick;
Who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9)

During my most recent pruning season (March — September 2016), some people, including my mentors, were always saying to me that I need to relax, rest, spend time with God, be thankful to God in advance for providing what I’m waiting on, and to trust God. But let me share with you that at many times it was hard to simply relax and trust God. So here is my advice, based on a very tough pruning season I went through recently:

1. Focus on you. This includes your spiritual formation, and perhaps ask yourself: who do you depend on, to give you worth and validation? This might sound like one of those breakup relationship advice. But truly, during a pruning season, you are focusing on separating yourself from the past, old ways, and any impurities. No matter how many people you know and love you, sometimes people fall short. Nobody can give you more worth and unconditional love than God. No matter the circumtances, he is still there for you. Remember that focusing on you has 3 aspects, each person has a soul (thoughts and feelings), a spirit, and a body to take care of: “May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thessalonians 5:23). If you need help in any of these aspects of yourself, don’t get stuck not asking for help. If you haven’t gone to the doctor for longer than a year, this is the time to do so.
2. FROG: Rely fully on God. Ask God, “what are you trying to teach me right now?” Do everything you can to rely on him with people who share your faith, read the bible and seek to understand it. There were days in where negative feelings overtook what I would do daily. And all I could hear from God was the word “TRUST.” That’s it. Learning to trust in God, regardless of how much he doesn’t tell you yet, is essential. I’ve grown deeper in love with God, because when nobody is there, and I cry, I know he is right there comforting me, the only one who knows my every pain. If you don’t believe in God, wait till you hit some sort of rock bottom, when you have less nice things to brag about, who is there to be with you when all you might be able to do is go out on a walk or visit a friend to avoid spending unnecessary money eating out? And that leads me to the next one
3. Find who your real friends are. This is a tough one, but truly, when you are going through a lot, for example having financial struggles, you can’t buy a gift for a birthday party, baby shower, or wedding. When you have less or no money to spend going out, you will just spend time with people over the phone, at free events, or visit each other’s homes. The place to hang out doesn’t matter anymore when you have a true friend. You will differentiate true friends versus social friends. Some will stop inviting you to go out with them, because of your financial situation.
4. Keep a routine, build healthy habits, make a budget list. After all, you do have the time to do this. The valuable time you have now, which you might be using in overthinking, or in coping with an unhealthy habit, can be used to build healthy habits. When more opportunities come your way, would you be organized and disciplined to handle them? If more is added to your plate, would you be able to take care of the basics? Are you used to recording important day and priorities in your to do list, even though you may not have a lot in there right now? When more is added to your plate you don’t want to be a forgetful person who lacks the discipline of prioritizing your day and recording important things. And don’t forget some spiritual disciplines to keep your spirit and soul renewed, have you managed to keep those consistent?
5. Practice stewardship by selling or donating what you know you won’t use. There is a saying that you have to get rid of the old to make room for the new. Even though I didn’t put too much time into selling, decluttering, and donating, I wished that I did when I had more time. In addition, tithing is part of the biblical concept of stewardship. If there is nothing to tithe, perhaps consider serving with what you have been given as spiritual gifts and talents.
6. Catch up with friends, mentors, and loved ones/family. I was actually catching up less with some of them, because I knew that some would tell me the same thing regarding my income situation, so I avoided some people. I also avoided some people who would usually talk about the last restaurant they went to, or their last road trip, because I had to avoid any sort of comparison traps that my mind can get into. But there are some closer friends I should have spend more time with. Because after all, life is not about our own problems only.
7. Relax, Enjoy, and stop being so hard on yourself.
8. Do you recall a season where you were working/studying a lot of hours and barely had time to do the simple or BIG things that really matter to you? This is the time to do them.
9. Learn to pray for yourself, share your burdens, and ask the right people to pray for you. I say the right people because during a pruning season, there might be caring people wanting your best and giving you all sorts of advice, instead of just praying for God to give you the next step you are to take.
10. I learned to NOT AVOID THE PAIN, but to let myself be okay feeling the pain, expressing it (I cried almost every week), and releasing all to God. During this last pruning season, I learned to let the Holy Spirit comfort me and I learned to recognize pains of disappointment, rejection, doubt, insecurity, lust, etc. A lot of things from the past came back to haunt me during the pruning season. In addition, I went through a lot of rejection, crying a lot, and discouragement from family members, I love them but the Lord was teaching me to not depend on their validation. No matter what they think is best for me, I knew that the valuable time I had spending with God is worth it.

Now that I shared my advice, since you are still reading this, I’m going to share more detailed personal stories about my pruning season. I’m not sharing to bring glory to myself but to bring glory to God. It was so hard to go through it, I cried almost every day if not, every weekend.

First and foremost, I have accumulated a lot of financial debt. My pruning season began with a huge amount of dental bill that I was able to put it on credit card and still have until March of next year to pay it. Due to my lack of discipline in flossing, scheduling deep cleaning appointments, and due to me eating sweets late at night and falling asleep before brushing my teeth, I accumulated 11 cavities. I didn’t go to the dentist to find out how my teeth were. I went because my last wisdom tooth was growing and giving me pain. So when I went to the dentist I not only had the wisdom tooth extracted but I had to get a general check-up and well since I’m there for the extraction, I will as well take care of the rest, right?

You probably think that I should make sure I have enough income to cover my expenses. Well, when that happened I wasn’t earning lot of income at the time, and every time I applied to different jobs, people never hired me. And then few months after my teeth were in right standing, I resigned my last job because of a big dream to work as a life coach. Even though I had the desire, the ability, and the time to work as a life coach, it didn’t turn out the way that I thought it would. I began coaching clients for free and began doing marketing on my own. I enjoyed every part of it, except that I treated my business more as a hobbie. This is my first time working for myself by the way. I didn’t know I had a huge amount of details to learn from others and practice for myself, especially discipline, working in the digital platform, and depending on God in this area. God broke down religious perspectives that I was having about coaching people during my recent pruning season and he also gave me the needed strategies at the end of the pruning season. This took about 5 months. At times, other roles in life were not successful because figuring out and learning to manage my private coaching practice took time.

Besides learning that building something new takes time, I had to learn to take what I could use to bring income. In this case, I worked very hard as a driver for Uber and Lyft. In addition, I also kept tithing, even on days that I was not earning a lot, even though I have accumulated credit card debt, I kept on tithing to the church and ministries, based upon the leading of the Holy Spirit. If you want to know about tithing, go to Malachi 3:8-10.

Now that I am on the other side of a pruning season, even though I have not stopped learning, and I’m here on earth waiting on many promises to come to completion, I have seen new fruits and opportunities from God since October of this year, have been honored to receive about 14 new client sign-ups in the past month on a paid plan. Remember I was coaching about 8 clients for free since April till the middle of September.

*Side Note: To those of you who have been praying for me (THANK YOU!), and those of you who deliver a professional service, I want to share with you that through a spiritual fast, insight from God, and through coaches, I was able to figure out that my digital coaching service page needs to describe that I serve everyone, regardless of gender and spiritual belief. So I focused on having the right words to describe whom I can serve and why I do what I do. MY PAGE today doesn’t look like it used to look back in April 2016. Whatever you are struggling to figure out, perhaps a SPIRITUAL FAST will help give you the right next step you are to follow, honoring God will never be something you regret.

And lastly, Remember this, what you are going through is temporary. “But we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope” (Romans 5:3–4).

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