Lessons from a Tomato Plant

I love gardening (I use the term loosely). I enjoy being outdoors pulling weeds, mulching, the whole nine yards. Sparta told me he would till up a little spot so I could have a few vegetables this year. I bought the plants and waited. Now over two months later, I am still waiting. Since the plants were beginning to look a little sad in their tiny containers, I filled some Rubbermaid storage totes with potting soil and transferred them over.

My eight little tomato plants perked right up and are really pretty, but that won't last long there's not enough room for their sustained growth. Several years ago I put out a tomato plant that quite accidently thrived. It survived a late freeze. I learned a few things from that little plant. The first thing I took away from it was that even when it looks like we might be out for the count, there is still hope. After the freeze, the plant appeared completely dead but within a couple of weeks it had greened up near it's base.

The next thing I learned was that you can't just let a tomato plant grow anyway it wants. While I believed that any growth must be a good thing, I was wrong. It must be pruned in order to produce the healthiest and largest fruit. There are side stems, also called suckers, that will deplete the primary stem of nutrients so that it will not have many tomatoes or the ones it does grow will be smaller and less tasty. It really bothered me to cut the suckers off; it felt weird to harm something that seemed healthy. However, by keeping the plant free from this growth in unwanted areas, it was able to absorb more of the sun and make more sugar for the fruit. How amazing is that? All that puts me in mind of how God works in my life. Even though it might appear that I am thriving and growing sometimes that new growth is just a sucker that needs to be pruned. The choices, some of which seem good, may be taking me in a direction that God never intended for me to go.

One last thing with the plant, I found myself able to pick tomatoes from my deck. The deck was about ten feet above the ground and the plant grew to be over twelve feet tall. Never had I seen such a tall plant before then and never since then have I seen another. It produced close to 100 tomatoes and didn't break from the weight. I had trouble finding enough people to take those plump red things off my hands so that they would not be wasted. God used that plant in my life to teach me lessons in unexpected ways. I understand more about producing good fruit and the necessity of pruning. I understand that even though there are some tough and often surprising circumstances in life, times when it appears hopeless, there is hope. I learned that God can take something weak  and give strength that is beyond understanding.

Here's the real kicker in the whole tomato plant experience, I don't even eat tomatoes.