A Two-Tomato Tomato Plant

           With a great deal of gusto and determination I committed myself to growing tomatoes this summer. A few pots, some soil, water, and a patio with lots of warm afternoon sun ensured a bumper crop.  I could taste the perfect, juicy fruit.

            It’s the end of the summer, only a few weeks left before you have to start thinking about ripening tomatoes in brown paper bags or grabbing a skillet for fried green ones. At this time, I’m accessing the venture, as every gardener most likely does, for success, failure, areas that need improvement or crops that need to bite the dust—forever. Tomatoes may need to bite the dust. It’s been just that bad.

            Last summer was terribly hot, and the tomatoes didn’t fare well under those conditions. This summer the weather was terrific for me but not for the tomatoes. The cooler temperatures contributed to a couple of kinds of wilt virus. Then, when the weather warmed up and the tomatoes could flourish, they developed growth cracks because of too much, too soon. Looks like a bit of leaf roll set in, too. If that wasn’t enough, I evicted horn worms and sprayed aphid.

The two-tomato tomato plant

            The most insulting thing that’s happened is none of the above.  I have a beautiful tomato plant that’s growing like a weed, and it’s only got two tomatoes on it! Well, one tiny one just set on and few blooms, but come on, it’s August. Too little, too late. That bugs me the most. You grew and grew and grew, and all you’ve got to show is two? Disappointing. I wanted a sliced yellow tomato, just like I remember from gardens of yesteryear.

            You knew there was going to be a spiritual application here somewhere, didn’t you? What do you think God thinks when He looks at our lives? I wonder what he thinks of my life. How much have I had? How many sermons, studies, books, Bibles, prayer meetings, interactions with other Christians? What’s my ratio of input to fruit?

            For several months I’ve been praying through the prayer requests that Project Hannah http://www.projecthannah.org/home sends out each month for each day of the month. Sometimes I can’t pray for the request for women around the world without shedding tears, and it’s almost impossible to pray without feeling privileged and often self-indulged. I wonder if I’m not like my two-tomato tomato plant.

           

The beleaguered, faithful tomato plant

What I would at least like to be is my tomato plant that’s lived with wilt, been ravaged by horn worms and aphid and still is producing fruit, even though the fruit shows signs of the battle the plant experienced. One plant has had a better pot, soil, and location and produced little, the other produced under duress.  Does this make you squirm? It does me.

            We can’t help where we’ve been born or into what economic level, but we can examine our lives for fruit worthy of our Master and live with open hands extended to those of the Kingdom and those without. That will take guidance from our father God, and the fruit may come in many different shapes and sizes. But there should be fruit—more and more all the time.

            My tomato plants are nearly done. I don’t know if I’ll grow any next year. My biggest successes were my mint and basil plants. They had fewer adversaries. I expect a crop; God does, too. How does your garden grow?