A Pocket Full

a devotional for summer

Photo by Jessica Ruscello on Unsplash

Thank you for joining us! Before we begin our devotional, I wanted to share a Comment Highlight from last week:

On last week’s devotional, Kevin LaTorre commented:

“We've placed three (soon to be four) birdfeeders in our apartment porch, and the flux of birds absolutely conjures the image of the heavenly emissaries ever on the move. There are tit-mice, wrens, woodpeckers, bluebirds, robins, and cardinals, and each kind at any appearance is captivating. Countless types of messages from the air, but a shared response (absolute attention through the window).”

We loved the picture you painted for us, Kevin! Kevin runs a very profound and thought-filled Substack called A Stylist Submits, “where Christian thought and world literature meet”. Check it out!

If you want to be featured in next week’s Comment Highlight, all you have to do is post a comment on any of this week’s posts or threads. That’s it!

Now, on with this week’s devotional…

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my grandmother’s quilted jacket
smiles on my shoulders
in the unseasonable
chill
of a June morning;

the pockets
once held
her crumpled Kleenex, 
perhaps some beach glass,
a misshapen rock
that the barnacles
vacated;

but today
these pockets sag low
with my garden's first peas,
fat pods
swollen
with tender sweetness;

I think about the weight of it
(peas, jacket, garden, world)
and how full I feel
(pockets, grandmother, garden, world)

and how sweet it will taste
when I slip from this quilted jacket
in the warmth of the summer kitchen,

and the peas
slip
sweetly
from their shells. 

Few things will teach you the miracle of Providence as gardening does. In the garden, you watch up-close as something tiny and hidden sprouts, emerges, grows, and eventually produces something you can eat. And not only can you eat it, but it truly nourishes you in a way few other foods can.

Providence is often mysterious, looking down in surprise to find that your pockets are full to bursting. How did that get there? Who could have done that? It usually arrives when we are least expecting it.

Sometimes I think God must behave like a parent does, or a loving spouse, hiding something in plain sight and waiting for us to find it. And when we finally see it, and laugh in delighted surprise, He celebrates every bit as much as we do.

In the garden, the greatest teacher of Providence is, perhaps, the volunteer plant. The seed you didn't see that fell into the soil the season before, lying dormant until it was time to emerge with the rest. A squash tucked in with the peas. A wayward lettuce rising up through the snap beans. A potato trying to hide in the corn bed.

Pretty soon, you’ve got food you didn’t plant. A harvest you didn’t intend. A holy surprise.

Providence is hidden in plain sight. All we have to do is feel the weight of it, look down, and find our pockets full to bursting.

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