I am grateful for cherry tomatoes!

I went out to my little veggie patch this evening to pick the beautiful yellow, orange and red cherry tomatoes that are completely covering my veggie patch. I am so grateful for them this year. I absolutely love cherry tomatoes. It’s the one veggie I just have to have in my garden. I have grown them every year for about 17 years now.

But 2 out of those 17 years I didn’t have the time or energy to plant my tomato plants. The first time was the year I was going through my divorce and my kids were 18 months, 2 and 4 years old. I knew that the next year I would be moving and my landlord wouldn’t want my huge compost pile in the back corner. I asked the local missionaries if they would help me and they shovelled the whole thing onto my garden plot and turned it all over.

But after it was done, I didn’t have the time or energy to plant anything, I just left it. The kids and I got away for a holiday in the summer and when I came back the garden was 3 feet of weeds! I couldn’t believe it. There isn’t anything worse than weeding 3 feet of weeds but I knew the landlord and the neighbours wouldn’t be too pleased if I just left it, so I started weeding. As I went along I came across a plant and thought that’s not a weed, I’m not sure what it is but it’s not a weed.

Then I started seeing tomato plants! I know what tomato plants look and smell like and I was sure that was what I was seeing. They were scattered all over the garden patch and these other non-weed plants. I couldn’t believe it! I was being blessed. I had been so disappointed that this year I just didn’t have the opportunity to plant seedlings like every other year but here it was 2 months later and I have tomatoes growing.

I knew this was a blessing to help me in during this difficult time. At the end of the summer as everything ripened, the tomatoes were cherry tomatoes! And the other plant was parsnips! I have never grown parsnips before, I don’t normally eat parsnips. They weren’t in my compost so I was dumbfounded. Where did they come from? Well even the parsnips were a blessing because I was able to trade them for other veggies the kids and I liked. I knew this was a special crop from heaven. I was reaping where I did not sow! I felt so blessed and so very grateful.

Well it happened again to me this year. I had worked so hard on publishing Two Mothers One Prayer and was exhausted! I was struggling with my health and energy. Years of stress all caught up with me. I had been given seedling in May but June and July came around and they all died on my porch because I never got around to planting them.

I felt bad but I just didn’t have the energy to take care of them. Then I looked at my garden patch and it was filled with weeds. One day I felt well enough to tackle some weeding where I wanted to lay down mulch. As I went along I saw a tomato plant and another and another. I found 14 tomato plants! I hadn’t planted any but here I was being blessed again! I am so thankful! I had tears in my eyes that day, knowing that my Heavenly Father was looking after me during my difficult days, that such a little thing brought me happiness. And now that the tomatoes are ripe, I think of that day and I am so grateful to be eating the fruit of something my Heavenly Father sowed for me. I hope you can look around you and see some little blessings that you didn’t work for but deserved and received and are grateful for. I’d love to hear about it if you are up to sharing.

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