John 15:5"I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.

I am not a solitary entity; I am merely a branch on the vine.  While this truth carries a weighty responsibility, it also relieves the burden of feeling that I am somehow in charge of my life’s success or failure.  God has shown me in so many ways over that last couple years that letting go of control, and allowing Him to be in control of my life is where true peace comes from.  And in that process of letting go, of being pruned back in ways that were painful, I have been amazed time and again as He came in and brought amazing fruit out of those places of being pruned.  So when I read this scripture, a part of me cries out, that Yes, Lord I do want to be defined not as a solitary entity, as someone who wins or loses in life.  No,  I want to look at every trial, every victory, every fruit that is produced, as a mere piece of a larger puzzle, I want to be a branch that is growing off of The Vine.  I want the fruit that God has planned for my branch to produce, not the fruit that I envisioned.  And I pray that it is to my Father’s glory that I bear much fruit, that I would be know as His disciple.

Anna