What God Won’t Let Me Forget
“Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.” – Galatians 6:2
This past February, I planted tomato seeds on a whim. Woke up one morning and decided I was going to grow something. So much had died recently, I wanted life. I wanted healing.
Dirt therapy, they call it.
Every day since June of 2024, I’ve been walking a tightrope. If I lean too far in either direction, I’m going to fall. I was looking for balance.
I didn’t do it because I was dreaming of a huge harvest. I did it because I needed to keep my mind occupied and distracted from emotionally traumatic experiences. I was determined to have a better summer this year – a very different summer. I needed to color over last year’s nightmare with a heavy permanent marker.
Caring for them was time-consuming, but that was the whole point.
I started small. One pack of seeds, a couple of seedling trays, some sunlight, and a little bit of hope that at least a few of these would sprout. Before long, I had more than seventy seedlings. It was a little (a lot!) overwhelming, but I was determined to finish what I had started. I entered into March wondering if I had bitten off more than I could chew, though. Caring for them was time-consuming, but that was the whole point.
Most of my seedlings were healthy, stretching mightily toward the sun. Some withered and wilted no matter how much care I gave them. Repotting all of these took two whole weekends and about 837 trips to Home Depot. But to reiterate – consumption of time, thought, and movement was the whole purpose of this exercise.
Not all of my young tomato plants survived, but enough did to keep me watering, separating, repotting, staking, pruning, and fussing over curling leaves, even realizing marigolds (supposed to help) were hogging too much space in my grow bags. It was work – a lot of work – but it filled the need my heart was dying for.
The truth was, it was too much for me. Just like everything that happened last summer. Too much for me, too many emotions to carry alone. There was no way I could keep all of these plants, so I didn’t even try. I gave them all away. My neighbors Fay and Joe & Carol took some, my friends Sandra and Kelley took five each, longtime friend from my hometown, Edith, took about five more, then I saved five for myself and gave the rest of them to my cousin Dusty who lives out in the “country” and had the space to plant them.
Suddenly my little healing project wasn’t just mine. It belonged to “my people”, too. It reminded me of Ruth’s words to Naomi: “Your people will be my people.” I realized these tomatoes weren’t just mine, they were ours.
That’s when the magic started happening. The Mater Squad started texting me updates about their plants. Edith had a baby tomato first. Then I got a text from Kelley with about six baby tomatoes the size of blueberries. Well that made Sandra and me jealous, so we went and checked our plants and responded to Kelley’s text with pictures of our own baby tomatoes!
Dusty sent me pictures of his rows of plants. I saw Joe and Carol out back, staking and tying, and Fay was calling me to come help her tie hers up with old pantyhose. My friends Wendy and Linda reminded me every few days to pull the “suckers”, Lesa offered her expertise, and Vickie told me about Tomato-tone (which prompted another trip to the HD); they were all pros and had done this before.
The Mater Squad shared their worries, their little victories, and even their frustrations with the progress of growth. I found myself cheering with them when their first tomatoes turned red, and nodding when someone said they’d never realized how much work it really was. Me either! These plants were gargantuan. They all ended up being more than six feet tall, and I could hardly reach the tops of them.
In the middle of this adventure, I realized I wasn’t just raising tomatoes. God was using those plants to raise me back up. He was propping me up bit by bit with every text message, every Facebook post, every laugh, and every shared harvest. And it turns out, Jesus was right in Matthew 18:20 – “Where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.” He didn’t just give me something to grow. He gave me the people to share it with. Now I’m not saying we purposely got together to grow those tomatoes for God. What I am saying is that God brought us together to grow those tomatoes for me. That, my friends, is what I consider “the church.”
Healing rarely happens alone. We want to believe we can muscle through it by ourselves, but God’s design is different. He weaves us into community. Galatians says to carry each other’s burdens. Sometimes that looks like praying for someone, sometimes it looks like sitting in silence with them, and sometimes it looks like watering a tomato plant someone gave you and sending them a picture.
When I look back on this summer, I’ll remember the taste of my own tomatoes, sure. More than that, I’ll remember how my friends unknowingly carried me. How my cousin’s rows in the dirt became part of my healing. How God used the simple act of giving tomato plants away to remind me I don’t have to walk through the hard seasons by myself.
We think of gardens as quiet, solitary places, but maybe God designed them to be shared. So while, in the beginning, I wasn’t really looking for a huge harvest, I got one anyway. Only it wasn’t tomatoes. It was friends, confidence, support and worth. Man, what a harvest.
Prayer for the Harvest
Lord, thank You for the friends and family who carry part of my burden, sometimes without even knowing it. Help me to notice when others need that same kind of support, and give me the courage to show up for them. Teach me to celebrate not just the fruit of my own harvest, but the joy of sharing it with others.
Here’s another essay you may enjoy about joyful giving! Guard Your Heart, Give From Your Overflow