Tomatoes In A Jar

What your hands provide you will enjoy; you will be blessed and prosper.  Psalm 128:2

Growing up we always had a gigantic garden.  The garden was the work of the summer.  There was always something to do, planting, weeding, picking or preserving.  My mom canned and froze enough  produce for the whole year; green beans, carrots, potatoes, corn, tomatoes, peas and beets.  It was a complete drag during the middle of the summer when it was 100 degrees and my brothers and I were sitting in the back yard shucking corn for hours but fresh sweet corn in January made it all worth it.  I can’t begin to count the times my folks reminded me of that while they handed me another bucket of green beans to snap. It isn’t always easy to see the blessing that comes with the investment at the time.  All these years later, I still plant a garden and can tomatoes.  True, I can get a can on sale for less than a dollar but it just isn’t the same.  The problem is, by the time spring finally comes in Michigan and I get to a point with the end of the school year chaos and I finally get them planted it’s always September before they are ready to pick and can.

This is a particularly busy time of year with speaking and school but I came home Wednesday to a basket of tomatoes staring me down.  I knew they had to be canned or they would spoil and even though I had a dozen other things to do, I reminded myself how good they would taste in chili and soup when the snow was flying so  I got to it, but not without plenty of eye rolling and muttering under my breath, “really…now…I have to do this now?  Why can’t they be ready before school starts, that would be much more convenient!  As I stood at the kitchen sink washing jars and peeling tomatoes I asked myself why I even bother at all. But as I sit here typing, drinking a cup of coffee, I hear the canner bubbling and the soft clink of the seals setting on the jars fresh from the canner and I realize how satisfying it is and how connected I feel to my mom when I do what she did.  It’s worth it, but it always takes me a  while to remember that.

If I’m being honest, canning tomatoes is a little like my faith life.  I love the end result, but more often than I should, I grumble about the effort and the time it takes.  I want the relationship and the grace but I don’t always want to invest the time necessary.  I want to head to the pantry in January and grab what I need but it takes effort to make sure it will be there when I need it.  Sometimes my prayer life is  like that.  I cry out to God with my list of wants and needs and I just expect to grab what I need.  I take his mercy and his goodness for granted way too often.  It will be a sad day when I go to the pantry and there are no more tomatoes but it would be an unfathomably devastating day if I went to the Lord and he wasn’t there.  I very well may run out of tomatoes but I can breathe a sigh of relief to know as long as I run to the Father and truly seek him, his grace and compassion will never run dry.  Out of all the things I needed to do besides can tomatoes, I had to make the tomatoes a priority.  I wonder how much better my attitude and perspective would be if I remembered to put the Father and his  plan as my top priority every day. Timing is important.  No matter how hard I wish, I can't make those tomatoes ripe any sooner.  Patience is such a key and these tomatoes are a reminder to trust in Gods timing is perfect. As I sit back and admire the jars of warm tomatoes all lined up on my counter I’m pretty sure there are many times the Father lines the events of my days up in perfect order and I don’t even notice it or thank him for it.  Funny how much you can learn from putting tomatoes in a jar!

A Seed To Plant:  Make a list of three things you can do this week to invest in your relationship with the Father. Say a prayer of thanksgiving for someone who taught you something important.

Blessings on your day!