Ripening Tomatoes
Don’t you just love the smell of the tomato plants as you tend your garden? Don’t you just love the smell of the cucumber when you give it that first slice? Yum! I love having a garden!
I was looking out the kitchen window at my garden the other day and noticed something about the way they grow. All of my plants were put into the ground at the same time. All of the plants have been exposed to the same amount of water, the same amount of sun, and the same amount of fertilizer. Yet, I noticed that each type of plant had its fruit show up at different times.
One cucumber popped up almost immediately, but the others took some time. The tomatoes showed flowers right away and then small tomatoes that continued to grow into mature tomatoes. I have several tomatoes just waiting to be the perfect shade of red. The broccoli took forever! I thought my broccoli plants had failed until I looked just the other day and saw a little tiny broccoli head starting.
It got me to thinking about how different my children are from each other, how different I am from those around me. I can’t compare my tomato daughter to my broccoli son! I can’t compare my cucumber self to a pepper friend! We all mature differently and behave differently, we understand things differently and take things in differently. Each of us has a different reason for homeschooling or for attending the church we go to. It’s amazing all the different varieties God has created!
Baby Cucumber
The Bible talks in many places of bearing fruit. One parable in particular, (Matthew 13:8) speaks of plants that bare hundredfold, some sixtyfold, and some thirtyfold. We want our children to bare fruit. We want our own lives to bare fruit. But, it can get discouraging when we think about questions like “how much fruit is enough?” and “when exactly should this fruit start coming out?” and other questions that go through our minds as we make it through each day.
I thought my broccoli was a failure. It didn’t bare fruit at the same time my tomato plants did and not nearly as much. One tomato plant has four or five tomato plants on it and one broccoli plant has only one broccoli head on it. Maybe one of your children isn’t reading as quickly as another. Maybe one still has some maturity issues where the other did not. Maybe they don’t enjoy the same subjects or projects as you do. There are even more differences when you compare yourself to others around you. Its all okay!
Emerging Baby Broccoli
Water them often enough. Pluck the nasty old weeds around them as quick as you can. Put them in the Son … I mean, sun! 
Throw away the old leaves as they whither. Tend your garden of beautiful children and/or your own life. Then, patiently watch and enjoy as the fruit of your labors starts to come out.
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