In Florida “winter” means very little, but a year or so ago we had a different sort of winter—long cold spells with lows below freezing and highs only in the 40s, and frosts as late as April.  Snow fell in the panhandle and in the north central peninsula.  Usually we are sorry to see the heat return, but that year we were longing for it.

            The spring was different too.  The azaleas bloomed two months later, and all at the same time, so profusely you couldn’t even see the branches.  The blueberries had more fruit on them than any time in the five years past.  The hostas not only came up again but multiplied, sending up four plants where each one plant sat the year before.  The spring wildflowers were beautiful, turning fields first into blankets of blue and lavender, then red and maroon, and finally pink and white.  The oak pollen fell so thickly the lawn looked like wall to wall brown carpeting.  And the garden produced better than it had in years.

            I wondered, could one thing have to do with the other?  Could a long, hard winter be the cause of good crops and beautiful flowers in the spring?

            And they arrested [Peter and John] and put them in custody until the next day because it was already evening.  But many of those who heard the word believed and the number of men came to about five thousand, Acts 4:3,4.  That is not the only case in the New Testament where rapid growth of the kingdom followed hard on the heels of persecution.  A long hard winter of trial always seemed to make for a springtime of growth among God’s people. 

            Then there is the personal aspect.  I have seen so many times how a personal trial has led to spiritual growth in a Christian.  I have experienced it myself.  Something about trial inures us to the pains that might otherwise cost us our souls.  We grow stronger little by little, gradually learning the lessons of faith, endurance and strength in the service of God.

            That may be why I cringe when I see a young mother turn every little scrape on the knee or cut on the finger into a life-threatening crisis worthy of the loudest wails, instead of helping her child learn to laugh it off.  I have seen too many of those children grow into men and women who complain about everything that does not go their way.   If it’s okay to whine and cry like the world is ending when you fall and skin your knees, why isn’t it okay to scream at other drivers who get in your way?  If it’s okay to pout and mope when you don’t get to play your favorite video game, why isn’t it okay to complain long and loud when the boss asks you to work overtime?  If it’s okay to pitch a fit when some mean adult tells you to straighten up, why isn’t it okay to stand in the parking lot complaining about the church, the preachers, the elders, and anyone else who doesn’t see things your way?

            God needs people who are strong, who can take pain and suffering for His sake, who understand that their way doesn’t really matter if it is not His way, and that the good of the kingdom and its mission may have nothing to do with them having an easy, perfect life here in this world, but everything to do with a perfect life in the next. 

            Just as with everything else, our culture is affecting us.  The strong silent type who can take the worst the world has to offer and keep going is no longer the hero.  Instead we reward jerks and boors and idolize intemperance.  Prodigality and lavish lifestyles are our measure of success; striking back is our measure of character, and throwing tantrums is our measure of strength. 

            I see a day coming when the church will once again be in the middle of a long, hard winter of persecution.  The way we are going we may not survive it at all, let alone have a bountiful spring, because trials and persecution only work to build strength when you learn from them.  They only produce character when you have the toughness to take the bad with the good without whining about it.

            What kind of spring will you have next year?
 
And not only so but we rejoice in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation works steadfastness; and steadfastness approvedness; and approvedness hope; and hope puts not to shame, because the love of God has been shed abroad in our hearts through the Holy Spirit which was given unto us,  Rom 5:3-5.
 
Dene Ward

It’s spring and that means the tarps that have been protecting things for several months need to be laid out to dry, folded, and put up.  It’s spring and the plastic sheeting needs to be set up over the small, early, garden plot because we will have another frost or two.  It’s spring and that means the breezes are blowing and nothing will stay where you put it for any length of time at all.

            In late February Keith was out in the field laying out the tarps and plastic to dry in the sun, and trying to weigh down the corners with buckets and tools and anything else that came to hand.  He had managed three or four all by himself before dinner, and then I walked out with him afterward to see the freshly tilled garden and the early plot he had set out.  He bent to secure one corner of plastic just as the breeze increased and blew it right out of his hand.  I leaned down to help on my end only to have it, too, blown from my grasp.  He got hold of his corner as I chased mine around in a circle.  Finally we each had a corner and bent to secure them with handfuls of moisture-heavy garden dirt, only to have a particularly strong gust blow it free yet again.

            Three or four tries later we had the early plot covered and secured, the plastic stretched over a line three feet off the ground that ran down the middle to make a small greenhouse of sorts.  We were clothes-pinning the center where the “door” of our teepee met on either end.  Even that took a few tries followed by pinched faces and hunched shoulders waiting for the breeze to once again undo it all.  It held!

            “Whew!” he exclaimed.  “This kind takes prayer and fasting.” I looked at him with a rueful smile, and wondered how many prayers he must have prayed before I got there to help.

            You know, of course, that he was referring to Matt 17:21.  The disciples could not cast a demon out of a boy, but Jesus could.  For their lack of faith they received a stern rebuke, yet Jesus added that it was a particularly difficult demon to cast out.  Sometimes you will have to work harder than others, he seemed to mean by his comment about prayer and fasting.

            And occasionally overcoming a temptation is more difficult than at other times.  Sometimes it’s the circumstances.  If you are tired, or in pain, or grieving, or in any number of other situations, you may have a more difficult time passing the test.  Sometimes it’s the test itself.  Some things bother us more than others, pushing the buttons that most easily cause a reaction.  Sometimes it’s the “help.”  How many times has someone offered the advice to “calm down,” only to have that very advice cause the opposite reaction in spades?

            But notice this about that narrative in the gospels:  Jesus still expected those disciples to have mastered the demon and tossed it out.  Yes, it’s a hard one, he said, but you could have done it if you had enough faith.

            And so can we, if we are in the correct frame of mind.  There is always a way of escape.  It is never more than we can handle.  It doesn’t matter what the test is, what the circumstances are, or how many other well- or even ill-meaning people get in the way. So here are a few suggestions that might help all of us.

            Know your hot buttons and avoid them.  How many times do the Proverbs call people fools who go blundering about their lives without even a thought where they might be headed?  How many other times are the “fools” the ones who go to difficult places with the arrogant notion they won’t be trapped like everyone else?

          If you cannot avoid these difficult situations, then prepare yourself before you get there.  If that means looking at yourself in the mirror and giving yourself a good talking to before you leave the house, then do it.  If it means praying before you leave—always a good idea—do it. 

          Then, don’t forget what you did the minute the door shuts behind you.  Nothing changes because your surroundings did.  If it means quoting scripture all the way through the situation itself, or singing hymns, do it.  Do whatever it takes.

          Don’t blame your failure on anyone else.  “I was doing fine until you came along and…” won’t change the bottom line.  You blew it.

          Do not give yourself an out of any kind.  “He deserved it [my tirade],” would cause you a lot of pain if it were said of you and God followed through on it—we all “deserve it” whatever “it” we might be talking about.  Don’t feel sorry for yourself because it was “hard.”  Do not ever excuse yourself if you failed.  You will never improve if you do.

          Know yourself.  Know what might take “prayer and fasting” to overcome.  God expects it of you, just as He did those apostles.  He expects you to succeed.  And you can.
 
Save yourself like a gazelle from the hand of the hunter, like a bird from the hand of the fowler. Prov 6:5
 
Dene Ward

We recently discovered a new wildflower, a fifteen foot long vine with delicate, featherlike leaves, and bright red tubular blooms with a star-shaped flare.  Keith brought some home from the woods and stuck them in several plastic nursery pots.  Now, several weeks later, they are doing just fine.  When I looked them up and found their name, Cypress Vine, I also discovered that they are often sold as garden annuals under the name Red Morning Glory, but that they proved so hardy they have spread to the wild, including the wild just across my fence.
 
           Hardy indeed when all you have to do is take a cutting, stick it in the dirt, and water it until it roots.  Not every plant is so easy.  Sometimes you must root them in water.  Sometimes you must get a product like Rootone, dipping the ends of the cutting into that powder before you try to root it.  But all transplants have this in common—they deserve special care.  Transplant shock can claim even the strongest of specimens without it.

            The same is true when we convert a sinner to the gospel.  Transplanting him from a world of sin to the rarefied air of the redeemed can be more than his system can handle.  So he needs special care.  Too many times I have seen churches baptize a man then say, “Whew!  Now he’s okay,” and leave him standing in the midst of surroundings so alien to him that he withers and dies almost immediately.  It may not seem alien to us, but we are used to it.  We took root many years ago and now we stand strong and able to endure temptations, trials, and even the mere tedium of life.  Why do we expect a cutting from the world to instantly take root and blossom?  We treat our garden flowers far better than our new brethren.

            Even a cutting described as “hardy” needs daily attention.  I expect my Cypress vines to bloom vigorously this time next year.  But I don’t expect them to suddenly grow to their usual fifteen feet covered with flaming red flowers before then.  Why are we so impatient with our new brothers and sisters in the Lord?  It is worth it to take the time with them, nurturing their growth as we would our own gardens, so that we can bask in their beauty just a little while down the road. 

            Agriculture is hard work.  Jesus talked about laborers in his vineyard, not people simply strolling through, taking the tour so they could have a free wine tasting at the end.  You don’t get to taste his wine when you don’t work to care for his grapes.
 
Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees. Say to those who have an anxious heart, "Be strong; fear not! Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God. He will come and save you." Isa 35:3,4.
 
Dene Ward

I was beginning to think it would never happen.  We had one brief—very brief—cool snap in November, but then summer returned.  We were still running the air conditioner in early January.  Finally, the third week of the new year we had several days with lows in the low thirties, one where we never topped 41, and even a few snow flurries.  Now, I said to myself.  Now I can prune the roses.
 
           You never prune the roses until they become dormant.  I was not sure three or four days of cold was enough to put them in that state, but surely they were close simply because it was time, I reasoned, and the cold was not predicted to last beyond another 48 hours so my window of opportunity was small.  So I took my clippers and went at it, cropping the thinner, more pliable stems and leaves—including those with some new red growth from the warm week before—and gave them the half to two-thirds haircut they need annually.  It will be an anxious few weeks before I find out if I ruined them.

            Dormancy is an interesting thing.  Plants, or seeds right after harvest, go to sleep.  For plants it happens with adverse conditions like low temperatures, drought, or low light.  In order to conserve energy, the plant stops growing and sheds softer tissues, replacing them with hard wood, scales, and dried tissues.  It puts on this suit of armor to protect itself.  When conditions change, warmer temperatures or enough water to live on for example, the plant wakes up and resumes its normal growth.

            After mulling it over one morning I decided that is our problem.  We never go dormant.  I defy you to study the Word of God deeply enough, and meditate long enough to reach new insights, by taking just five minutes a day to “read a chapter.”  It won’t work.  But instead of finding that precious time—instead of making it—we make excuses instead.  We stay too busy with life to slow down and spend quiet time with God.

            And Isaac went out to meditate in the field toward evening...Gen 24:63.

            I will ponder all your work, and meditate on your mighty deeds, Ps 77:12.

            My eyes are awake before the watches of the night, that I may meditate on your promise, Ps 119:148.

            Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer, Ps 19:14.

            Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things, Phil 4:8.

            And that is just a fraction of the verses that tell us we need to spend far more time with God than we do.  How many times did Jesus spend all night praying?  And if you have not had your prayers drift off into meditation, that may well be why you sit there thinking, “I could never pray that long.”

            Look back at the advantages of dormancy.  Dormancy is a period of rest for the plant.  God knew we needed rest.  He gave His people a day no other culture had, the Sabbath.  When everyone else was working dawn to dusk just to survive in an ancient world, He took care of their basic survival that day (as when the manna did not spoil) so they could rest, so they could spend time with family and with Him.

            Dormancy provides the plant with “a suit of armor,” protection during adverse conditions.  If you wait until the crisis arises to consider your actions, you will invariably make poor decisions.  Time to think ahead, recognizing your weaknesses and planning your “way of escape” can be critical to your spiritual survival.  Meditation will give you that time to prepare yourself.

            Dormancy gives the plant “anesthesia” for the painful tasks of pruning and grafting.  Looking at yourself in the mirror is hard enough without being forced to in the middle of a spiritual emergency.  Time alone to carefully consider and face your challenges can make the difference in whether you make the changes you need to or not.  In the face of rebuke, too many of us consider it too painful to even consider the notion that we might need a little pruning of the character to please God.

            And then there is the greatest benefit of all:  time to develop a
relationship with your Creator.  I knew a young couple that broke off their engagement after realizing that they had absolutely nothing to talk about.  A wise young couple, I think.  If you haven’t spent enough time in His Word to have anything to talk to God about, don’t be surprised if He doesn’t break it off with you.
 
I remember the days of old; I meditate on all that you have done; I ponder the work of your hands. ​I stretch out my hands to you; my soul thirsts for you like a parched land-- Selah, Ps 143:5-6.
 
Dene Ward

More than once I have been outside weeding and accidentally pulled up a fistful of thorns.  Usually it’s a blackberry vine, though stinging nettles are not far behind on the list.  Either one makes for pain and blood loss for at least a little while and I try hard to look a little closer before the next pull.
 
           Not too long ago I saw a picture of a plant called “Crown of Thorns.”  It’s an import to our country, a type of cactus, but one that is notoriously picky about its surroundings.  You can only grow it in Zone 10 or higher, but once you get it going, it’s nearly impossible to kill.  It is heat and drought tolerant.  Long after other houseplants would have died from neglect, it will even bloom.

            The photos I saw made me think of the crown of thorns we are familiar with as Christians, the one the soldiers wove and placed upon Jesus’ head.  I doubt it was the same plant, but it looked as I imagined that one would, a thick stem covered with long sharp spines.  I cannot even imagine trying to weave the thing without leaving yourself a bloody mess.
 
           We sing a song with these lyrics by William Featherston:

1. My Jesus, I love Thee, I know Thou art mine;
   For Thee all the follies of sin I resign;
   My gracious Redeemer, my Savior art Thou;
   If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus, ’tis now.
2. I love Thee because Thou hast first loved me,
   And purchased my pardon on Calvary’s tree;
   I love Thee for wearing the thorns on Thy brow;
   If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus, ’tis now.
3. I’ll love Thee in life, I will love Thee in death,
   And praise Thee as long as Thou lendest me breath;
   And say when the death dew lies cold on my brow,
   If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus, ’tis now.
   
4. In mansions of glory and endless delight,
   I’ll ever adore Thee in heaven so bright;
   I’ll sing with the glittering crown on my brow,
   If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus, ’tis now.
   

I missed it all my life until Keith pointed out the thirds lines of verses 2 and 4.  “I love thee for wearing the thorns on thy brow,” and, “I’ll sing with the glittering crown on my brow.”  Jesus wore a crown of thorns so I could wear a crown of glory.  If it was anything like those plants I saw, it was a bigger sacrifice than one might ever have thought, but the symbolism is profound because everything he went through that horrible night was for me.  And you.  Even that prickly crown.

Now, as his disciples, what sort of crown am I willing to wear for others?  Can I, as the Corinthians were chided to do, give up my liberties?  Can I concede a point even if I know I am right because in the grand scheme of things it doesn’t matter?  Can I stop an argument instead of continuing one?  Can I let someone else have the last word?

Can I give up my time and convenience for the sake of someone who needs an encouraging word?  Can I skip a meal to visit the lonely?  Can I miss a ball game to hold a Bible study?

Can I stay up a little later to pray a little longer?  Can I turn off the TV to spend some time in the Word?  Can I make teaching my children about God a priority instead of something we just try to fit in when we can?

None of those things will cause the kind of bloodletting those thorns did, but if I cannot even do those paltry things, how can I even hope to wear that “glittering crown on my brow?”  If that makes me uncomfortable and ashamed, good.  That’s why we sing those songs.  They are to teach and admonish, not produce feel-good pep rallies.

When I am weeding in the garden, I do my best to avoid the thorns.  Maybe in life, I should be out there looking for a few to wear.
 
And the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head and arrayed him in a purple robe, John 19:2

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing, 2Tim 4:7-8.
 
Dene Ward

Several years ago I received a pot of rust colored chrysanthemums as a gift.  I enjoyed them for many days before they began to fade.
            “Well that’s that,” I thought as I placed them on the outside workbench so Keith could salvage the dark green plastic pot for other uses.  By the time he got to them, they were brown and withered, as dead looking as any plant I had ever seen.
            Keith cannot stand to throw things away.  “It might come in handy,” he always says as he pulls things out of the trash.  That is why he stuck those dried out flowers in the ground beneath the dining room window.  Yet even he was amazed when a few days later green leaves sprouted on those black stems.  It was fall, a mum’s favorite season, and before long I had twice as many as I had started with.
            Fast forward to Thanksgiving, a year later.  I now had a bed full of rust colored mums about two feet square.  The next year the bed was four feet wide and my amaryllises were swamped.  Keith built a raised bed about eight feet square, half of it for the mums and the rest for a plumbago, a miniature rose, and a blue sage.  That has lasted exactly one year.  The plumbago, rose, and sage have been evicted by the mums and need a new home.
            What started as one six inch pot of mums, withered and brown, has become 64 square feet of blooms so thick they sprawl over the timbers of the raised bed into the field surrounding it.  Whenever I cut an armful for a vase inside, you cannot even tell where I cut them. 
            We often fall prey to the defeatist attitude, “What can one person do?” Much to the delight of our Adversary we sit alone in the nursery pot, wither, and die.  Yet the influence we have as Christians can spread through our families, our workplaces, our neighborhoods, and our communities.  The good deeds we do, the moral character we show, the words we do—and don’t—say make an impression on others.  Those are the seeds we plant, never giving in to the notion that one person cannot accomplish anything.  The attitudes we show when mistreated and the peace with which we face life’s trials will make others ask, “Why?  Can I have this too?  How?”
            Plant a seed every chance you get.  If a six inch pot of dried up mums can spread so quickly, just think what the living Word of God shown through your life can accomplish.
 
And he said, How shall we liken the kingdom of God?  Or in what parable shall we set it forth?  It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when it is sown upon the earth, though it be less than all the seeds that are upon the earth,  yet when it is sown, grows up, and becomes greater than all the herbs, and puts out great branches, so that the birds of the heaven can lodge under the shadow thereof, Mark 4:30-32.
 
Dene Ward

Seems like every August one of the morning network shows will have a spot on what to do with all those tomatoes.  Unfortunately, those shows usually air from New York City where they seem to think that everyone thinks like they do and lives like they do, and that even the weather follows suit.  New York City must be the center of the universe.  
    Down here in Florida our tomatoes are 1 to 2 months gone by the time those shows air, depending upon the year.  We eat and give away those perfectly formed, unblemished firstfruits from the last week of May till halfway through June.  Then I spend a week canning tomatoes with the plum varieties, and a few days on specialty items like salsa and tomato jam.  Another week using up the end of the year uglies on sauce, and that’s that.  It’s a rare year that I have tomatoes after the Fourth of July.
    And guess what?  In the south part of this long state, things are different still.  Tomato season Is different for every location and climate.
    It’s like that for Christians too.  Not only do different spiritual ages have differing levels of understanding, but even different locations fight different battles.  A long time ago, we moved north.  Talk about culture shock.  Not only did I see my first snow, we had to fight heresies that had been fought down south ten years earlier.  You can see those things happen in the New Testament too, as trouble travels from city to city.  
    We can also discover exactly how patient—or impatient—we are with our brothers and sisters.  I forget how long it took me to reach this point and expect it of them in a few short weeks.  I become annoyed with their failures and with their lack of understanding.  Somehow I expect them to leapfrog a few decades and catch up.
That is not how it works, and we must make allowances.  It may mean we are more careful in our decision making, and it may mean we give up our liberties.  It’s one thing to be held hostage by the views of the stubborn who claim they are “offended;” it’s quite another to trample on the fragile souls of those new in the faith, who are still grappling with the baggage they have not quite left behind.  
And let us not deter, or even discourage completely, their salvation with some manmade list of things they should know before we accept them into our congregations.  Smacks a little of catechism class, doesn’t it?  Just how much do you think that Philippian jailor knew when Paul baptized him “in the same hour of the night?”  Enough to understand his need for a Savior and how to contact that redeeming blood.  He had a lifetime to learn the rest.
    Tomato season for me is not tomato season for you, and my Christian age is not the same as yours.  If you expect a green tomato to taste like one that has been vine-ripened in a home garden, you are not as wise as you think you are.

We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up. For Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, “The reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me,  Rom 15:1-3.

Dene Ward

I’ve often thought that Keith is a frustrated farmer.  If things had worked out differently, perhaps in another era even, that is exactly what he would have been.  Working the ground suits him well because he cannot sit still and he doesn’t think he has really worked unless he gets filthy in the process. 

            That garden of his has also done well by us.  I do not know how we would have survived without it.  Others with teenage boys spent nearly twice as much as we did on groceries and we ate as well or better than they, especially in the middle of summer.  For weeks the table was loaded with platters of fresh corn and tomatoes, and bowls of whatever beans or peas were producing at the time, with other extras added in as they ripened—fried okra, cucumber salads, cherry tomato salads, and homemade pickles, fried, or scalloped or “parmagiana-ed” eggplant, peppers stuffed with ground beef, rice, onions, and herbs and baked in a homemade tomato sauce, squash stir-fried or layered in casseroles with cheese sauce and cracker crumbs, homemade biscuits slathered with blueberry jam, muscadine, scuppernong, and blackberry jellies, and anything else I could come up with to use up all the bounty and fill up all the men.  

            They say there are holidays between May and September.  Really?  I suppose there are days when Keith does not go to work, but those just mean more work in the garden.  We spend Memorial Day snapping green beans and shelling peas, and putting the first of those in the freezer along with the last of the blueberries, and canning blueberry jam.  July 4th means corn shucking time--usually the second patch is in by then--and an assembly line in the kitchen putting up a couple dozen quarts.  The rest of the summer “break” we spend with yet more “putting up” of pickles, limas, black-eyes, and zipper peas, tomatoes, tomato sauce, salsa, chili powder, herb vinegars, and finally, the muscadine jelly in August.  Labor Day means catching up on all the things we had to let go when the fruits and vegetables came in, plus tilling the now spent and bedraggled garden under to help prepare the ground for next year. 

            We often missed outings, barbecues, and other summer events because of the garden work.  Why?  Because without that garden we would not have made it.  What may be a hobby for some was a necessity for us.  Times have been rough and it was the only way to feed our family well for the money we had.  I did not buy a jar of tomatoes, tomato sauce, jelly, jam, salsa, or pickles for twenty years.  You want to hear some stories?  I can tell you how to make one chicken feed your family for four days.

            Some of us want to treat our service to God like a hobby, like a garden we don’t really need, we just go out and putter around in it when the notion suits us.  We fail to realize that it is necessary to our survival.  We have mistaken the fact that we have enough in this life to mean that we have enough for the next too, without all that commitment, service, and labor nonsense.  So we go out once or twice a week and pull a weed, thinking that is all that is necessary, that God will supply the water and fertilizer for us and give us a bumper crop, which He will reap and can for us to enjoy some time in the future.  Why, isn’t that what grace is?

            As long as Christianity is nothing more than a pleasant little pastime, and the church a nice little social club, we are more than happy to take up some time with it.  But we will never reap any rewards until we treat it as a career necessary to keep us and our families alive. 

            Many of us are willing to throw money at practically any cause.  It makes us feel good.  What God demands is our time and our labor, things we Americans are often loath to give to anyone but ourselves.  There are no holidays for Christians, not until you understand that the blessings a Christian receives make every day a holiday from the curse of sin and the chains of Satan.

Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.  1 Cor 15:58.

Dene Ward

 

            The garden has come and gone.  Day after hot, humid day I stood in the kitchen, scalding, blanching, peeling, seeding, chopping, mixing, packing, freezing, pickling, preserving and canning.  After an hour or more in the garden, followed by six hours of standing in the kitchen, my back ached, my feet throbbed, and I had a knot between my shoulders blades.  Then the next day I got up and did it again.  In the evenings we shelled and snapped until midnight or our hands ached too much to continue, whichever came first. 

            So why did I do it?  Because it had to be done.  This is one way we manage not only to survive on what we make, but to eat fairly well in spite of what we make.  This is how we fed two teenage boys and remained financially solvent.  And it wasn’t all bad.

            Some days I managed to do a lot of meditating while I worked.  When you must do the same action over and over, like peeling four hundred tomatoes, it becomes automatic, so you can use your mind for better things, pondering recent lessons you have heard, drawing conclusions from verses you have read, and praying through some of the problems that beset you. 

            Keith helped me out.  I am not quite what I used to be, and the live-in help left quite a few years ago.  We cannot “chat” over our work as most couples can.  Sometimes I touched his arm to get his attention so I could tell him something I thought important.  Other times he spoke (since I don’t have to see to hear) and then I could reply when he looked up.  Once or twice we got into a friendly competition.  He still cannot fill a jar as quickly as I can—his hands are bigger and not as well trained, but what he could do still meant jars I did not have to fill myself.  And even after forty-one years, or more probably because of them, it was pleasant to be together.

            The other day Lucas said something like, “Isn’t it funny how we look forward to the garden starting, and then near the end look forward to it ending?”  And he is right—except for the peppers, things are nearly at an end, and I am glad.  Still, at the end of each day’s work the past few months, I looked on the rows of jars cooling on an old rag of a towel laid across the countertop and felt a sense of accomplishment, despite the occasional tedium, the many aches, and the pools of sweat on the floor from the rising steam in the kitchen.

            I wish you could see my pantry—twenty-three jars of tomatoes, fifteen jars of salsa, eighteen jars of dill pickles, a dozen jars each of okra dills and pickled banana pepper rings, and thirty jars of three kinds of jellies and jams.  Then open the freezer—two dozen bags of corn, twenty bags of green beans, ten bags of lima beans, eight bags of zipper cream peas, twelve quarts of tomato sauce, and eight quarts of blueberries.  The best is yet to come though, when my grocery bill totals half what it might have been and ultimately, when we eat it all.

            So maybe it was not what some might consider a “summer vacation.”  In fact, I also had a couple of days worth of testing at the eye clinic mixed in there somewhere, but it was a worthwhile venture that did us far more good than tanning at a beach might have. 

            I think living a Christian life might be the same sort of vacation.  Some days it is hard work.  Some days it is tedious.  Some days it causes us pain.  But we can make even the worst days better by meditating on the comfort in God’s word, and by talking to Him whenever we want to.  We have a spiritual family who will help bear our burdens, who will weep when we weep and rejoice when we rejoice, people who will make the bad days go quicker and the good days even happier.

            And then before you know it, it’s almost over.  But there are things we can look back on with satisfaction, unlike our friends in the world who will have so much to regret.  They will also have nothing to look forward to, while for us the best is yet to come, and aren’t we looking forward to that? 

            For all of us summer will soon turn to fall, and after that the winter.  Make sure your pantry is full.

And I heard the voice from heaven saying, Write, Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from henceforth, yes, says the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors, for their works follow with them, Rev 14:13.

Dene Ward

Keith had to have some fairly serious surgery last year and since he is 90% deaf, the doctor arranged for me to be in his hospital room as his caregiver 24/7.  He does read lips fairly well, but lip reading is not the perfect solution to the problem.  He must “fill in the blanks,” so to speak, as his mind tries to interpret the sounds his ears miss, which is most of them.  It takes a lot of concentration, and when he is tired or does not feel well, he simply cannot hear at all.  But over the years I have learned how to communicate in all the various ways, from hand signals to pantomime to pointing at people or things to carefully wording without overdoing the mouth movements or using too many words. 

            So for six days we were both away from home and wouldn’t you know it, it was the height of garden season.  When we came home I had to do it all because he couldn’t even lift more than 10 pounds for two months, let alone bend over to pick vegetables or drag hoses.  That first week was the worst.  I picked every morning, sprayed the whole garden twice, (we’re talking an 80 x 80 garden here), pulled cucumber vines covered with blight, chopped out and hauled away the old corn stalks, placed folded newspapers under 50 cantaloupes so they wouldn’t rot on the ground (a very thin-skinned variety), cleaned out weed-choked flower beds, put up both dill and red cinnamon pickles, and picked and tossed 8 five gallon buckets of squash and cucumbers that did not have the grace to stop growing while we were in the hospital!

            Of course we all know that is not going to happen.  The plants continue to grow, the blossoms continue to set, and the fruit grows far larger than you ever imagined it could.  The back field looked like a marching band had gone through throwing out big yellow saxophones as they passed.

            It works that way with children too.  I can think of dozens of things we planned to do with our boys when they were little—things we never got to.  Sometimes it was a case of no money, but sometimes we just let life get in the way.  I wrack my brain trying to remember if there was anything we planned that we actually accomplished at all!  But just like gardens, children keep on growing.  They don’t stop to wait until you have more time to spend with them, or more resources to spend on them.  They won’t wait till you get a bigger house or an easier job or a raise.  They won’t wait until your life is exactly like you want it.  If that’s what you are waiting for, it will never happen.  You have to set your own priorities and make it happen.

            Every summer I made my boys a chore list.  I am sure they remember it fondly!  No, probably not, but on that list was this:  “Play a game with mom.”  Guess which “chore” they never skipped?  Sometimes it was checkers, sometimes it was monopoly, sometimes it was even pinochle, a game they learned with some of their dad’s commentaries set up on the table to hide their hands because they were too small to hold all the cards at once.  Sometimes it was one of the board games I made to help them with their Bible knowledge.  And every day we had Bible study of some kind, whether just talking about things between the bean rows as we picked together or a formal sit down study. 

            These are just some ideas to help you along.  We have all heard the old poem “Children Don’t Wait.”  It’s true, and last summer I thought about that even more as I looked out over the overgrown garden.  Maybe my grandsons will reap a little from the repeat of a lesson that is never taught enough.

And he said unto them, Set your heart unto all the words which I testify unto you this day, which you shall command your children to observe to do, even all the words of this law. For it is no vain thing for you; because it is your life...Deut 32:46-47.

Dene Ward