On Grief and Tomatoes
It was a lovely little garden, really. In the depths of winter, when snow still peppered the ground, we carefully tucked our seeds into warm earth from the coziness of our kitchen. My daughter, four years old, wrote the names of the vegetables on popsicle sticks in her slanting, childish handwriting. We watched our seedlings sprout, and then grow, and then thrive. We cautiously transplanted them and prayed for rain and for God’s abundant sunshine.
We all have places we retreat to where we feel at peace. Mine is my garden. It is not a big place, barely even a garden if you really think about it. But it is a place of comfortable solitude for me. As a mother of a four year old and a two year old, that is a valuable thing.
In the past twenty four hours, this lovely piece of land, my peaceful hiding place, was ravaged by animals. All of our glorious tomatoes - so near to harvest - were ripped from their vines. Our beautiful bean plants, even our jalapeños(?!)…gone. Vines, so green and vibrant just one day ago, lie broken and trampled. My precious pumpkin, the crop I was perhaps most proud of cultivating from seed, now has bites ripped from its unripe flesh. All because I forgot to close the garden cover overnight.
It is a trivial loss in the grand scheme of things, but this affront to something I hold so dear feels like a very personal defeat. I should not be surprised. I am confronted every day with the fallen world I inhabit - in the headlines I flinch away from, in the harsh words I give and receive, in the defiance of my children and the impatience I respond with. We are imperfect people living in a very imperfect world: a world where thieves (animal or human) steal and destroy, where our good efforts are ruined by misfortune or evil, where every single force seems to be against us sometimes. And yet…still the Lord calls us be steadfast in our vocations, working with our hands and our hearts despite the very real chance of failure.
Ecclesiastes is my favorite book in the Bible. It is full of seemingly contradictory statements - that life is completely useless, that there is nothing new or worthwhile under the sun:
“What has a man from all the toil and striving of heart with which he toils beneath the sun? For all his days are full of sorrow, and his work is a vexation. Even in the night his heart does not rest.” (Ecclesiastes 2: 22-23)
But at the same time, it states that “There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil.” (Ecclesiastes 2: 24)
And:
“He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man's heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God's gift to man.” (Ecclesiastes 3: 11-13)
On days like today, when my hard work lies in tatters around my feet, I find solace in the tensions that are held so beautifully in Ecclesiastes. All is vanity, all is meaningless striving, all is toil with no gain. But…with the Lord our striving becomes holy. Our toil becomes our continual sanctification. Our despair and our loss lead to hope for a renewed world when Christ returns. Without the Lord, we are truly hopeless. Our vegetables will most certainly be eaten. Our hearts will be hurt by harsh words and sinful actions. But even more assuredly, every single person (and animal) that we love will die. We face a future that promises nothing except certain death. But in Christ, we have hope. We can enjoy our fleeting, ephemeral pleasures without fear of losing them, because we know that nothing in this world is ever truly permanent. We can hold our children and our pets and our beautiful tomatoes in our hands and say to ourselves, “truly, truly this is a gift from God. I will cherish it while it is mine.”
“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.”
-Ecclesiastes 3: 1-8
