I live in a land where plants grow ample and lush, the green abutting polished skyscrapers and metal-roofed slums.

Even after years of my growing plant collection, I am still wary to brave the sharp clippers toward my flowery bushes. So when my gardener cut a drooping succulent down to its naked limbs, I thought we had surely killed off its beauty.

But then I took a short three-week trip Stateside for my brother's wedding. When I returned and my eyes could finally see through my jet-lagged haze, I noticed a new plant on my porch. Who brought this here? It's simple and small, but so beautiful.

Then I realized - that's not a new plant. That's the very one we pruned back just six weeks ago. New sprigs of lime leaves were now budding from the previously barren branches. I had not even recognized it with all its new growth.

My heart immediately recalled moments where I felt I myself had been stripped bare. Our first night living in a foreign city after leaving everyone and everything we knew. Doctors and nurses speaking in accents as they talked me through my contractions at just 26 weeks. Constant needs to which I didn’t have the answer.

Jesus conveys the necessity of pruning when He uses the imagery of a vine: "I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 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 15:1-2).

I thought back to those bare seasons in my life where my self-reliance, my impatience, my desire for comfort and easy answers were all pruned back. And before I knew it, I looked back and barely recognized the girl I was before. Faith had grown from my stripped branches.

True growth in our walk with Jesus is not easy. Sometimes He does it through pruning out our selfish tendencies, allowing us to walk through hardships, or causing us to wait on His timing. But we can be assured the pruning is being done by and alongside a Good Father who knows what is truly best to bear more fruit within us. And just when we have all but given up, we begin to see little shoots sprouting from the tattered edges of our souls.