Tomato Truths

The other day I was challenged by a picture from long time friend Amy Miller. She and her family have been encouraging people in so many different ways for quite a while. If you have never read her ‘Vomiting Chicken’ (the title alone is enough to make you want to know what it is about), go take a read. Also check out andhedrew.com with some really thought-provoking ideas and some great art.

All this to say that the picture is for Amy. On the 27^th I guess it was World Tomato Day or some such thing, so she challenged fb to show their tomatoes (with a HUGE tomato in her? hand). So I thought about ‘my’ tomatoes – but this may take a little while to explain. If you don’t have time, you are free to move on (and come back when you do).

Albert Heijn is a local grocery store, like the King Soopers, or H.E.B. or Albertsons (do they still exist?). They were giving out little cardboard pots with seeds of all sorts of vegetables at the cash register to all who purchased something. At the end of the action, they were simply giving them away. I have always wanted to grow things, but have never invested the time and this seemed like a great opportunity – especially since we are hearing so much about bad foods and such.

Mind you, I have no idea how good these seeds were, if they were GM (NOT, it is now allowed in Europe without mentioning it) or if it would even work, but that was the beauty of the whole idea. I could try it without any real cost, without any real guilt and practically without any knowledge. Each pot came with a set of instructions on what to do. Of course the instructions were the same for each pot – whether it was for salad, radishes, tomatoes, or broccoli. But there were instructions.

So I took the pots home, put them in my window sill in the kitchen (it was March, I think) and watered them. It was exciting to see something come up out the dirt pretty quickly. But I had to remember to keep watering them. Soon I would be able to put them in bigger pots and put them outside – but not yet. The ground was still freezing outside and all sorts of people told me not to put them out yet.

When I finally moved the plants outside (once they were big enough to handle it) I simply bought some dirt for plants and dumped it in the stone planters on the one side of our yard that gets a good bit of sun. Very shortly we were even able to enjoy a head of lettuce and several radishes. Amazing! I was eating something I had planted!

But the tomatoes were taking a while longer. I have come to understand that all of the things I put out have different seasons. (I told you – I have never planted anything. Of course I know about seasons, but I don’t know which season is for what.) So I was waiting on the tomatoes. But camp was coming and that meant two weeks away from the house. Would they survive? Belgium is basically rainy, so I shouldn’t have to worry about watering, but the weeks I was gone were some of the hottest and driest in years (centuries).

But we came back and – voilà – I had little tomatoes growing (they are cherry tomatoes). And they are delicious! Very meaty, very ‘tomato-y’ and juicy. And this is where I started wondering (anyone who knows me knew this was coming). I am amazed and thankful for this wonderful gift. It is amazing what God can do with so little. And of course it should not amaze me, but it does. Seeds from a package in dirt from a package, planted in perhaps too shallow dirt at the wrong time(?) survived my mis-watering and heat and weeds trying to strangle them to become these wonderful tomatoes.

God does that. He takes things that seem to be useless (or are useless and broken) and turns them into beautiful, luscious, useful, nourishing, helpful. And then I wondered about a few things. What if I had taken the time to learn more about tomatoes before I began? What if I had asked some people who knew more for advice? What if I had made sure that the basics were followed in feeding the soil and adding water? The tomatoes I have are great because God can do amazing things with anything. But He can do even more when we listen to the needs of the seed and the soil.

What if I took the time to feed my soil with faith and the word of God? What if I was accepting of what the soil needs to help plants grow? After all, Forrest said it and it is true: _ happens. But that’s fertilizer, helping us to grow. What if I made sure I was getting the water I need, especially in hot times?

And what about the church? How can we all grow? God is the one who gives the growth, we only plant and water – but that is important! And of course God makes delicious, wonderful things even when I make a mess – so why not put the effort into caring for and nourishing? My tomato isn’t much, but it sure has fed me well.