Thank you for joining us! Before we begin our devotional, I wanted to share a Comment Highlight from last week:
Let me just say…this week’s Comment Highlight was SO difficult to choose, because last week’s comment sections contained so much goodness! I highly recommend reading the replies to our discussion thread AND the essay.
But choose we must, so this week I wanted to highlight this comment from Scoot, on last week’s essay:
You say, "The end implies there is nothing more to learn". And--well, I am trying to reconcile that with my understanding (Catholic tho it may be) of the Glorification and Resurrection. Learning is good, surely at the end of all things, in the perfected order, there will be learning, just as there will be rain and sunshine in proper proportion, each perfected in their own right. Perhaps to be a student of God and be able to ask Him questions directly is how that would look--I can't imagine spending an eternity with God and running out of questions to ask.
And I think that speaks exactly to your point: Seeing God in all things reveals both his infinity and his close, personal care. Yes, we should take care of our surrounds with love and care because they are ours, but we should also devote that love and care because they are ours *through Him*.
Thank you SO MUCH for your insights, Scoot!
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…
O slug! I ask you: what good that shining trail? it only leads me right to you; your nocturnal haunts in my lettuce leaves and bean stalks and tomatoes reaching munched! O slug! is it not enough that you leave your trace on everything; but must you implicate the roly-poly bug and the ant in your crimes? perhaps the silver is God's gift to you: to never quite get away with your thieving. or maybe it is His gift to us; to know that even something so disreputable so humble so misunderstood can leave its shining mark upon the world.
Despite my best intentions, I often make mistakes. Sometimes they are small and lack real consequences, and sometimes I plant out my tomatoes too early.
It is a sorrowful fact of Maritime Pacific Northwest garden life that the ideal window for transplanting tomatoes is small. Sometimes it feels like waiting for avocados to ripen: not yet, not yet, not yet, NOW…too late.
The tomatoes have to be the right height, the soil and the air have to be the right temperature (and consistently), and you have to have enough days left in the growing season for the whole dance to be worth it.
This year, I gambled. The air was just slightly warm enough, the tomatoes just slightly tall enough. The summer had started late, cold and wet; all of the local gardeners had thrown up their hands. Utter chaos, no rules anymore. I threw them in the ground and prayed.
The next day, all but one had been munched to soil-level by slugs, the roly-poly bugs gratefully nibbling the leftovers. The one survivor’s stem had been completely chewed through, leaving it lying on the mulch like a tiny fallen tree.
I said a few unflattering words that I will not repeat here and picked up the seedling in apologetic hands. The good news about tomatoes is that they are resilient in a unique way among vegetables: they can regrow their roots from the stem, as long as they have healthy leaves left and are quickly placed in the soil and given plenty of water.
So I “planted” the sad little seedling in its own rehabilitation pot in the greenhouse and hoped for the best.
It took time. It took a period of wiltedness, some yellowing of the leaves. But slowly, surely, the little seedling perked, strengthened, and stretched. New infant leaves formed in its little crown. Alive, and reaching for Heaven once more.
Soon, that rehabilitated tomato will be strong enough to go back out into the garden. It will be joined by the new seedlings I started from seed a few weeks ago, undeterred. I am hopeful for the miracle of at least one homegrown tomato, sun-warm, to hold in my hand. Besides, the slugs are not so bold, now; it’s too hot for them during the day, and at night the garter snakes emerge from where they lurk under the corn bed, hungry for a slimy treat.
When I pass that little tomato in its greenhouse pot, I recall that tomatoes and people are not dissimilar: sometimes a bit munched, sometimes a bit out of our depth. But resilient in a unique way. Handcrafted by God to always regrow, as long as the soil is good.
Ready to sing our song of sun when the time is right, and not one moment before.
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