Tomato-Plant Tenacity

Posted by Barbara | 0 comments

We are gardeners. I can say that now, because we actually have a garden in our backyard and we actually work in it. That makes us gardeners. We have a beautifully designed garden with plots that are big enough to hold many plants, but that are small enough to manage. The garden has good drainage, good soil, and lots of sun. It is well-watered and weeded thanks to my first-born who may indeed have a green thumb. All in all, it has the makings of being a productive little bit of land. I can’t say we are good at gardening yet. Only time will tell, and at the time of this writing the jury is still out. There are lots of leaves and flowers, but not much fruit yet. However, it is only early July as I’m typing, so we’ll have to wait for the real harvest time to prove our worth.

But that lovely set of plots is not even the object of my attention and affection today. You see, in our enthusiasm for this new garden (or was it our lack of faith in our ability to keep things alive?) we bought a lot of tomato plants. A lot. Like, 25. They were tiny, and we figured some of them wouldn’t make it (we were right!) and we figured I really did want to can a lot of tomatoes if they all survived. And so we planted many, many tomatoes in the garden proper. But there were two more that just didn’t fit anywhere.

Or so we thought.

My husband stuck two in to our flowerbeds. Good idea. They get a little less sun there but they will be watered, and the thought was that if something died in the real garden we could transplant over one of these out of the flowerbeds. Good plan.

However, the other day, my seven-year old daughter decided to help weed the garden. And she yanked out “this really HUGE weed!” Um….oops. That was the tomato plant. See the flowers on it? See that it is, in fact, growing in a tomato cage? My eldest quickly tried to salvage the thing by replanting it as best as she could and watered it some more, but it looked pretty sickly. Especially disastrous was that this un-rooting happened at the beginning of a crazy heat wave in our neck of the woods. Even the well-established plants were suffering under the taxing heat. Surely this little guy with his roots all broken would never make it.

And he did look pretty sad, pretty quickly. He wilted; he leaned up against the cage instead of standing tall as he had previously. The flowers fell off and no more buds seemed to be trying their luck. We thought about pulling it out and tossing it in the composter. However, it was just seriously too hot to go outside and do anything, so we thought we’d just leave it, watching it, (from the comfort of our air-conditioned dining room, no less) suffer a slow, sad, lonely death. Nice.

Some days, my daughter watered it, if she remembered, but we’d all given up on it. Wouldn’t you give up on it? And if you were the tomato plant, wouldn’t you have given up on yourself?

Well, well, well. Just this morning as we were surveying the flowers giving way to cucumbers and the snow peas almost ready to pick, and noting that there are tomatoes on nearly every plant, we turn around and see that sad little tomato plant is not giving up on itself at all, but is vigorously standing tall again, and putting out some new flowers.

Even after being ripped out of “its comfort zone”, even after being neglected of the water it needed to survive, even after being exposed to long and unbearable heat, this tomato plant held on and not only survived but is beginning to thrive.

Somehow it managed to tenaciously hold on, with whatever roots it still had intact, to the soil and moisture that was still there for its health. It managed to continue doing what tomato plants are supposed to do – put out flowers and grow tomatoes—even in the most trying of circumstances.

This is what I’m learning from this little plant: to keep doing what I was made to do even when circumstances make it nearly impossible to do so; and to keep hanging on to what blessings are present, no matter how out numbered they may temporarily seem.

Jeremiah 17:7-8 tells us “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. He is like a tree planted by the water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit.”

My tenacity better not be attached to my own ability, or my own circumstances, or to what others say about me. I may be tenacious and persist in my ‘fruit-bearing’ because the Lord is my trust. It is his work in my life that enables the spiritual fruit to grow even in times of spiritual drought. It is Him who wills and works to do His good pleasure in my life. That is why I can hang on. That is why I can keep going.

What is the Lord calling you to keep doing today? What is the thing that is making it hard for you to hold on and keep going? Do you see that the Lord is greater than that thing that hinders you? Trust in the Lord. Rest in the knowledge that He is able, oh so much more than able, to hold on to you, and cause you to flourish, as you obey Him.

Barbara Postma and her husband, as they homeschool their 7 children, are finding out that no two children are alike! Between lessons and lunches, Barbara blogs at Fuel by Barbara.