This tree is the result of a seed planted in 2022. I’ve tenderly nurtured and cared for this tree you see. The tree has a special meaning to me.

My parents have McIntosh trees on their land, and I have many memories of running in the fall to grab an apple from the tree before the school bus arrived. Those are pure, happy memories for me.

In 2022, I decided to see if I could grow a tree from a seed. The growth was substantial, and I was both shocked and in awe of what I could do with these seeds as I researched how to grow an apple tree from one. It’s not as simple as it sounds.

Everything I found said that if you get a seed from a “grandparent tree”—meaning one that’s very old and largely untouched by man—the odds are higher that you’ll eventually get fruit. But there’s another part to the process that helps increase those odds: grafting.

You can try growing a tree without grafting if you have a grandparent tree, but your chances improve if you graft a branch from a tree that is already producing fruit onto your tree. The challenge with grafting is that everything has to line up perfectly for the two trees to join together. The taping process, which helps hold everything in place, can be complex—especially when doing it alone.

There were times, as I worked through this, when I prayed, “Holy Spirit, Lord, I need Your help to hold this.” And it seemed as if everything aligned in those moments—as if angels were holding the branch so I could wrap the grafting tape around it.

The tree already has everything within it to produce fruit. It just needs the right connection—the source it came from—to come into alignment with it and increase its ability to bear fruit. That’s where grafting comes in.

It’s really like us. Scripture says we need to abide—we need to stay close. When you look at the process of grafting, in order for two things to stay connected, they must be held together for a long time so they can grow as one.

That’s a deep thought. In order for us to become one in our thinking with the Holy Spirit, we need to stay close—bound to Him through intimacy and through reading the Word. And as we do that, what flows through us is the power and authority of God Most High through Holy Spirit . Our heartbeat begins to come into unison with His.

““I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. Every branch in me that does not produce fruit he removes, and he prunes every branch that produces fruit so that it will produce more fruit. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, and I in you. Just as a branch is unable to produce fruit by itself unless it remains on the vine, neither can you unless you remain in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in me and I in him produces much fruit, because you can do nothing without me. If anyone does not remain in me, he is thrown aside like a branch and he withers. They gather them, throw them into the fire, and they are burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you want and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this: that you produce much fruit and prove to be my disciples. “As the Father has loved me, I have also loved you. Remain in my love. If you keep my commands you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. “I have told you these things so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete.”
‭‭John‬ ‭15‬:‭1‬-‭11‬ ‭CSB‬‬
https://bible.com/bible/1713/jhn.15.1-11.CSB