Category: Summer

Garden Fresh

Gardeners can appreciate the availability of fresh produce in their own or shared garden patch. Picking a red ripe tomato off the vine brings mouth watering anticipation of its juicy flavor.  It’s also just fun to watch them grow and ripen. My grandchildren love to spy out red tomatoes and ask if they can pick them for me! It’s a treasure hunt looking for cucumbers and zucchini under their canopy of leaves.  Yellow summer zucchini are easy to spot.

All the produce inspired thoughts of canning and freezing.  I pulled out well worn recipe books and Penn State’s guides to  preserving.  Since I have harvested lots of cucumbers recently, I finally decided to can dill pickles and pickle relish. I had already canned crispy pickles and  refrigerator cucumber with onion and carrots.  I looked at the recipes and decided on a sweet relish which looked simple.  Then I needed some red and green peppers and onions which were waiting in the garden!  A large green pepper was gradually turning red and when I checked it I decided it was great to use for the relish..

As I was cleaning and prepping the vegetables I thought about how the Word of God is like a garden full of fresh tasting food for our spirits.  Just like I have to go to the garden and pick the produce, I have to open my Bible to read the words and receive the revelation from the Holy Spirit.  As we read and meditate, we are preserving these eternal truths in our minds and hearts.  My canned goods will be eaten this winter and give nourishment to our bodies.  But the Words of life are eternal. We can access them in time of need!

Isaiah 40:8 The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the word of our God stands forever.”

Psalms 119:89-90   Your eternal word, O Lord, stands firm in heaven. Your faithfulness extends to every generation, as enduring as the earth you created.

Matthew 24:35. Jesus said, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away.”

Lost Inspiration

What do I do when I have lost my inspiration?  The name of this blog is inspirations from the garden for the body and the soul!   I have been avoiding even looking at this blog.  There hasn’t been too much inspiration probably because of the business of life and when I had time, I would read email, look at the weather, but not open the blog.  Today I mentioned this to a friend and asked for prayer.  This afternoon in the least expected place, digging in the dry, hard ground and not finding a single potato, the inspiration for another  post came!!

It is delightful showing beautiful, green pictures of produce and flowers.  But what do I write about when my late summer garden has been a disappointment.  The tomatoes have been small, the spaghetti squash rotted before ripening, only one hill of pumpkins have any promise and who knows but maybe the stink bugs have been eating holes in them!

The very last verses in the book of Habakkuk state this thought,  “Though the fig tree should not blossom and there is no fruit on the vines, even if the yield of the olive should fail, and the fields produce no food,  even though the flocks die in the fields and there are no cattle in the barns, Yet will I exult in the Lord, I will rejoice in the God of my salvation! The Lord God is my strength, and He has made my feet like hind’s feet, And makes me walk on my high places.”  

Even if this late season had not produced a single thing, I can still rejoice in my God who is my strength.  In the spring I plant and hope that my vegetables will look like the ones pictured in the seed catalog.  It’s a disappointment when the seeds don’t sprout and the weeds take over eventually.

Seasons in my life start out with great promise and vision.  We can lose the inspiration that we once had.  It takes diligence to keep working, even when the results are not what I expect.  I can trust in God regardless of the circumstances.  Habakkuk wrote that God gave him hind’s feet.  A hind is a sure-footed graceful female red deer who moves with confidence in the high mountains.  When the disappointments of life come, we can climb to the high places where the air is pure and clear and we can be refreshed regardless of the circumstances of life.