Hi First Presbyterian,
It’s time for our Mid-Week Meet-Up. Some of you have been asking about my family’s tomato plants. You may recall back in February I sent out a Mid-Week Meet-Up about a tomato we bought from the store in November that had sprouting seeds inside and decided to do an experiment with them. We planted them. They sprouted more. We repotted five of them and, over the next few months, repotted them multiple times into bigger pots each time. By the time the weather was warm enough, we began trying to “harden” them by taking them outside for a few hours every day to get them used to the outdoor environment. You should have seen me hoisting 20-gallon pots with 4-foot tomato plants growing in them in and out of our house each day! It was a chore!
Well, the summer has flown by, and one of the plants died after we moved them permanently outdoors and two of them stopped growing because of blight. The remaining two have done pretty well, and we’ve been getting tasty tomatoes from them. The most interesting thing about one of the two plants that’s actually producing fruit is that, shortly after we moved it outdoors, it had severely languished. We cut that 4-foot tomato plant down to about 1-foot, and – wouldn’t you know it – it grew back as the healthiest of all the plants!
I’d like to reflect on that plant with you. It was healthy when it was first growing in our house. It had nice healthy leaves, strong branches and a stalk, and even a couple yellow flowers. However, the outside conditions were too harsh. It couldn’t tolerate the wind and the increased sunlight. So, we had to cut it back. Think about that plant as a metaphor for life. We experience seasons in life where things are going very well for us. We’re happy and healthy; we’re loved; we feel a sense of purpose and achievement. Then something drastically changes, and we’re thrust into a new environment. Maybe we move somewhere new. Maybe we receive a disheartening diagnosis. Maybe we lose our job. Maybe we are grieving the loss of a loved one. These circumstances create a challenging and harsh environment for us to live in. It may even feel like, because of our circumstances, we’re dying inside. Like that tomato plant, we feel like we’re languishing in our new environment. It’s natural to resist the change we feel inside. We try to stand tall but the wind is too strong and is breaking us.
When my family cut back that tomato plant, there was a while when it looked tiny and lifeless next to the other plants. But over time its branches and leaves grew back to the extent that it began dwarfing the other plants! Its new growth happened in the harsher environment; so, it was stronger than the other plants and could withstand more growth.
Friends, sometimes when we’re enduring hardship, it can feel like we are shrinking. If that’s you today, hang in there and know that God is with you. It is during those moments when we feel smaller, when hardship is around us, that we might be growing but don't know it yet. I’m not saying that God causes our suffering to make us grow. I’m saying that hardship happens to everyone for unknown reasons, and they present us with a choice: to give up or to try to grow. God can strengthen and empower us during our suffering so that we grow despite our circumstances. Lean on your brothers and sisters in the church. Lean on God. And don’t give up. You will bear fruit again.
Peace to you,
Pastor Neff