More than Enough

I have pulled up my garden for the year, but there seems to be more to talk about! Although I didn’t have much of a harvest this year, there have been years when the harvest was overwhelming. While harvesting the fruit may feel like the last step, it is far from it. That fruit can rot on the kitchen counter every bit as easily as it can rot on the vine. My first choice is to eat it, usually raw. My second choice is to give it away. Over the years, I have frozen a lot of homegrown veggies; my freezer is still full of sliced bell peppers in vacuum sealed bags. My children may inherit them! In the past, I have made tomato sauce, jarred cooked tomatoes and filled mason jars with pickles. If I lived in a time of scarcity or poverty or no refrigeration, preserving these products would be a vital part of gardening. As it is, I rarely used these foods and ended up throwing most of them out. Better to just give them away.

Giving the fruit away still entails some work. I need to pick out the best looking fruit and take them to people while they are fresh. I need to have a basket for carrying my produce to folks and bags for them to carry the fruit home. Not a hard task, but still a task. Do I feel so tasked with sharing other gifts God has given me? Am I being generous with my time and money? Am I using my skill set to honor Him? Am I making the effort or letting the fruit rot on the counter?

Like good stewards of the manifold grace of God, serve one another with whatever gift each of you has received. 1 Peter 4:10

I have a friend who makes bread and butter pickles every year from her harvest. She and her mom used to do that every fall, and the process connects her to her heritage. Family and friends expect this gift from her, and the pickles are a welcome addition to any gathering. Like all things homemade, they represent a gift of time and effort, more valuable than most things from Amazon.

These gifts are no small thing. God has gifted us with food and money and time and grace and faith and love. God has gifted some of us with business acumen or artistic skills. Some of us are gifted researchers or organizers or encouragers. When we share these gifts with each other, we strengthen the body of Christ, the community of believers.

Now there are a variety of gifts, but the same Spirit. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. I Corinthians 12:4,7

God has given you a gift. It may seem as small as a mustard seed, but what wonders God can perform with it! (Matthew 13:31) Two fish and five loaves, that’s all the boy had to contribute, but what God did with it! (John 6:9). Am I contributing what God has given me, no matter how small? Are you?

Thank you for continuing to read my thoughts on the garden and the Christian life. I hope to continue these posts for a while, although some will have little to do with gardening. I appreciate the gift of your time, and I hope God has made my words somehow meaningful to you.

For we are what He has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life. Ephesians 2:10

Betsy