John 15:1-7: in context

Jesus calls himself the true vine and his Father the gardener. Every branch in him that bears no fruit, the Father takes away; and every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes, so that it may bear more. Remain in me, Jesus says, for as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it remains in the vine, neither can you unless you remain in me. Apart from me, he says, you can do nothing; but the one who remains in him bears much fruit.

One line in this familiar passage often surprises us: the fruitful branch, too, is pruned. We might expect the Father to leave the fruitful branch alone and cut only the barren ones; but Jesus says that even the branch that bears fruit is cut back, so that it may bear more. Pruning is not punishment for failure; it is the gardener's care for a healthy vine, cutting away what is good but not best, so that the branch's strength goes into more fruit rather than into excess growth. And this means that some of the hard cutting-back in our lives, the losses, the curtailments, the seasons where something we valued is taken away or trimmed, may not be signs of God's displeasure at all, but the Father's pruning of a fruitful life, that it may bear more. This reframes suffering that we might otherwise read as judgment. When the Father cuts back a fruitful branch, he is not angry with it; he is investing in its future fruitfulness. The pruning hurts, and looks in the moment like loss; but the gardener knows that the branch cut back in spring bears more in season. So the trimming away of things in our lives, even good things, even fruitful ones, may be the loving work of a gardener who intends greater fruit, not a punishment but a preparation. The right response to pruning, then, is not to conclude that God is displeased, nor to resist the cutting, but to remain in the vine, to stay connected to Christ through the painful trimming, trusting that the Father who prunes the fruitful branch does so for the sake of more fruit. Pruning is the gardener's compliment to a branch worth investing in; and the branch that remains through it bears much fruit.

When something good is cut back in my life, a loss, a curtailment, a season of trimming, do I read it only as judgment or misfortune, or can I consider that the Father prunes even the fruitful branch for the sake of more fruit, and remain in the vine through the cutting, trusting his care rather than resisting it?