It is amazing to me how some people who have everything going for them and live in a supportive family environment with all the resources imaginable at their disposal can fail so miserably at life. Conversely, it also amazes me that people who have nothing but adversity can succeed so well in life. For some reason, this was brought home to me quite forcefully when I planted tomatoes this past year.
As the growing season ended and my plants could no longer make it in Colorado’s cold winter, the plants died. The last tomatoes were picked and I brought the planters inside out of the snow and ignored the plants as they sat inside my sun porch in the now 20 degree cold. Many months later I chanced to look at the plants and noticed that there were 2 tomatoes fully formed and ripened on the plant. The plant had been completely dead and brown and rock hard when I had last looked at it, and yet these tomatoes had managed to grow and sit patiently waiting to be picked for months! In addition, two more tomatoes grew and matured a month later. Not only had they thrived in their adversity, but they had been preserved throughout a long period waiting for me to notice that were long overdue for picking. They never should have grown in the first place, and they should have rotted off the dead vine long before, as well.
The essence of this experience spoke to me in this way: God is there for us through our adversity and we can bloom. We can succeed and we can prosper. Not only can we bloom, but if we are patient, we can continue to survive until we are chosen and rewarded by the master gardener. And above all, no life is too tough that God won’t be with us and sustain us through it all.
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