The pain is part of the process...

A Dragon Fruit (or a pitaya as we say in Nicaragua 😊) is fairly exotic looking.  It is oblong, and rose-colored with little “scales” that end in yellowish green tips.  The fruit is native to Mexico and Central America and it grows at the end of long arms that stretch out from a thorny cactus.

In order to “farm” these plants, you begin with trellises which the cactus can use to support itself as it grows.  In Nicaragua, they use other trees as natural trellises.  However, as the Dragon Fruit plant grows, the natural trellis must be trimmed because the plant itself needs lots of sunlight.  And that is where things get a little tricky.

I have said it before, but pruning a dragon fruit trellis is a little like wrestling a dragon.  You see, in order to make the necessary cuts, you must get close.  And often when you are close you get pricked and poked by the little needle-sharp spines of the pitaya plant. 

As we were at the Amigos farm, pruning the pitaya trellises, someone remarked that it was a pretty good analogy for what God does with us.  Sometimes it is painful – but the result is always better and more bountiful fruit.

“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

Sometimes the pruning God does may involve a relationship, a job, or something else in our life that we have valued.  And, at the time – we may think that He must not love us, or He would not allow such a thing to happen.  But the reality is, He is pruning away the things that are keeping us tied to something LESS than what He has planned for us.