The Crabapple Tree

         "I am not a crabapple! I am a golden delicious! " My children have heard me utter this phrase multiple times this week, but are still yet to question why I'm saying it. Maybe it is simply the fact that a crabapple sounds like a grumpy tree, and I have been saying this when I am tempted to be grumpy. Yesterday, we found out that my hubby has been a victim of identity theft, which meant there were a few phone calls to make on my end in the investigation. I hate trying to talk on the phone with as many kids as we have. The automated systems can never understand me with all the background noise that is usually going on in our house. I often times have to lock myself in the bathroom,  and it can be very distracting to listen to a couple of children pounding at the door while I am attempting to enter "the numeric portion of your address followed by the pound sign".  Yesterday, I could quickly feel my annoyance level raising to unsafe levels, so I verbalized that I am not a "crabapple". Saying it outloud stopped my anger from raising any further. 
          You may be asking, "So what's with all the tree talk?" Our church is launching a new ministry aimed at helping people break free from the hurts of their past; and as part of this, they've done a new sermon series concerning unlocking the door to freedom. This past Sunday our pastor talked about who we are in Christ. He gave the illustration that when we accept Christ into life hearts, our old life and identity are cut off of us. God grafts His identity onto us. We start out as, say, a crabapple. However, God fits a perfect graft of a golden delicious tree top on the base of our crabapple tree. The fruit we bear is golden delicious unless we let the sucker roots grow up from our crabapple base and bear fruit. After that grafting, nobody looks at that tree as a crabapple anymore. People see the fruit produced and call it a golden delicious tree despite its base.
         This illustration was mind-boggling to me, and made me very reflective.  Could it be that I am truly changed from a crabapple because of my graft into the family of God, and it is merely a process of opening my heart to God to ask Him to find the root cause of these sucker roots like anger and negative thinking?  Each time this week that I have felt the sucker roots trying to "bear fruit" I have verbalized that this is not who I am. I am a passionate person, yes, but not a yeller by nature. I can also be realistic without being "Debbie Downer".
         My girls have noticed that I have been happier this week (note not "perfect"), and my oldest daughter hypothesized that it is the phone. It's not, of course, it is that I have hope within me...hope that I am not defined by these negative habits...hope that I really am a "golden delicious". Hope is a powerful thing.
         If you'd like to listen to the message for yourself about "getting rid of your grave clothes",  please click here.