Refiners Fire and Vine dresser by Kari Trumbo

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I’ve been an editor for a few years now, but within the last year I finally decided to put my own ideas to paper. Editing my own work is infinitely more difficult than editing the work of someone else.

I recently came across a document with ways to edit your own manuscript prior to sending it to an editor. I’m now going through the hours of work it will take to refine a document I was sure was done. It got me thinking about how we’re refined by our Father. How the needless and often sinful things need to be thrown into the fire. Sacrificed to become the person we want to be. The difference, of course, between our manuscripts and ourselves is He understands we are never quite done.

My manuscript means a lot to me but it’s nothing compared to how the Lord seeks me. He desires perfection in His work, and sometimes we require massive editing. I recently finished removing most of the extraneous thats in my manuscript. It took hours. Frankly, I wondered when I was finished if anyone but another editor or author would even notice the difference. The fact is, after two days of cutting and reworking sentences, over 2000 words were cut from my original manuscript. It needed trimming, and so do we. He doesn’t want us to just bear fruit, but to bear MORE fruit.

John 15: 1-2 1“I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. 2“Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit.

When we cut away the parts of us that won’t bear fruit, even the little “thats” we think no one will notice, we become more fruitful. Our story becomes clearer. The more useless parts we clip, the more room we have for the fruit we are preparing to bear.

I also realized as I was editing it hurt a lot less than I thought it would to get rid of those words which had taken me so long to write. Honestly, once I learned they were merely extra and got in the way of what was important, it was easy to chip them away. So the Father, in His own knowledge of you, will with love trim and clip away those things that hold us back from being who we were meant to be.

Lord, I pray for your help in cutting away all of the things in my life which do not bear fruit for you. Remove the hurdles the hold-ups I have and make me closer to a finished work. Amen.

About the Author:

Kari Trumbo

Kari Trumbo is an aspiring author, freelance editor, wife and mother to 4 vibrant children. She homeschools, teaches 4-6th graders for Kids Club at the Paynesville Bible Church, crafts, and reads voraciously.

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