In the Garden

Nebraska is a wonderful and magical place in my mind’s eye. I moved there when I was five and left when I was 11. I miss the snow up to my thighs and the streets that are lined up in perfect rows and columns that are numbered for ease of getting around. I miss getting lost in the cornfields when the stalks were taller than my daddy. When my family moved to Nebraska, we moved into a house with a large backyard. The yard had two of my favorite things, a garden and a swing. That vegetable garden taught me several lessons about life. Mom and Dad would take us out and give us hoes and rakes to break up the dry brown earth. It was some of the hardest work I have ever done. We would make perfect rows of beans, corn and cucumbers. “Don’t put the seeds too close together.” Mom would tell me. I never understood why we couldn’t just scatter all the seeds like we did the radish seeds. I do now; crowded plants like people struggle for light and resources. As the garden was beginning to sprout new life, we would go out and hoe again to give the sprouting seeds a better chance to grow. Dad taught me to recognize the weeds from the important stuff in the garden and in life. In the fall, we would take bushel baskets to the garden and harvest the fruits of our labor. My parents showed me how to tell when the vegetables were ready for picking and the patience to wait on those that weren’t.

Christianity is like a garden, We have to sow the seeds of the Gospel carefully and on good soil. We need to tend to the tender seedlings as they are growing. We have to hoe the weeds of sin and worldly influence out of the garden to help young plantings grow strong. Finally at harvest time, we have to realize that not all of the garden will be ready to harvest at the same time, but loving patience will prevail.