"Cease to dwell on days gone by and to brood over past history. Here and now I will do a new thing; this moment it will break from the bud. Can you not perceive it?" Isaiah 43:18, 19 (NEB)
I have to admit that I have done my share of brooding about the lack of rain, about the intense heat, about the coronovirus that separates me from my family, about the fires in the west and the hurricanes in the south, about the divisions and unrest in our country. But I am amazed about the resiliency of creation. I cannot perceive it. Just a few weeks ago everything was dead, dying, or struggling to hang on to life. Then we had some rain and cooler temperatures, and this is what happened.
This morning I was greeted by a profusion of purple morning glories on the garden fence, morning glories that I didn't plant...
and a cascade of white morning glories all over the garden gate.
These beautiful zinnias planted themselves. They were leftover seeds from the long, hot summer.
These little baby zinnias didn't even stay inside the garden. They just found a home outside the garden fence.
This watermelon vine planted itself on the garden path. The biggest, sweetest, 40 pound watermelon that we enjoyed this summer grew from a seed that must have been lying in wait in the compost. This plant grew from seeds that were left over after a mama deer and her two fawns had their way with the last watermelon of the summer.
This cantaloupe vine came up on its own from an end-of-the-season cantaloupe that didn't quite make it to harvest. All this happened while I was fretting about preparing the beds for planting so that they would be ready for fall harvest. It seems like I am reaping what I did not sow. Gracious goodness. I wonder how much of my garden could be a perennial garden, one that I did not sow, one that I could not perceive.
These peppers plants were eaten to the ground by the deer in the hottest part of the summer. I suppose there was nothing else for them to eat. I was told that jalapenos are high in vitamin C. Maybe that's just what the doctor ordered for the deer. And here the pepper plants are, bounced back and blooming, ready to give me some more peppers for my salsa.
In the heat and drought of the summer this wild rose bush lost all of its leaves even though I had put a shade cloth over it to protect it from the brutal sun and watered it every day. I have heard that "roses love sunshine and violets love dew," but the intensity of the sun this summer was a little overboard. I thought I had killed another rosebush. But after the rain and a little cooler weather, it was covered with new leaves almost overnight.
The peach tree lost all of its leaves after we harvested all her peaches, and the heat of the summer set in. But after the rain it grew a whole new set of leaves.
And, miracle of miracles, the tiny little tomato seed I planted in July made a tomato plant and is blooming. We may have more little delicious Novas for Thanksgiving dinner, or before!
"Let hope keep you joyful." Romans 12:12 (NEB)
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