The Greatest Mystery of All

(A special post for SundayScribblings

It's a mystery to me - that on April 30th, my backyard looked like this. Well, an even bigger mystery was how I got my dad's old rototiller started to till up all of the old grass and even get it to this point. Add to that, I found the motivation to run a rototiller for the first time....and then rake out all of the clods and roots and debris. Where did that come from? But, beyond my total lack of knowledge about soil preperation and overcoming my laziness, on April 30th, this is where we were with the small patch of grass out behind the tool shed.

Let's now flash forward just 6 weeks or so to this morning



Yes "that" has become "this" - and I am not being self-deprecating about my lack of skill or knowledge. I, honestly, know absolutely nothing about gardening. I have never really done it before. I haven't read much. I didn't go down to Home Depot and take a class. I played around with a tiny patch last year and got some nice tomatoes out of the deal. Let's face it. Tomatoes are a weed. I think anyone reading this blog feels fairly confident that you could grow a weed.

Yet, here I am - just a few short week's from enjoying the mystery of how we can be provided with sustenance......and so grateful that this mystery exists. Nature's bounty.

Tomatoes - cherry, early girls, and beef steaks...6 plants in all. Way more than I will need. Every plant has reached the stage of bearing fruit. This is good. I have been told that sometimes you get nice plants but no fruit.

Bell Pepper - one fully developed bell pepper is showing. I know there will be more but, right now, there is only one and it is almost ready to eat. That's a mystery. It is almost as if His Divinity is saying, "here is one for you to eat today...see the little bud? You can eat that one later."

Cucumbers - the leaves are so big that you have to peel them back so you can peek inside and see the little babies that the plant is keeping shaded. It is almost like she keeps them in her secret pouch and is sheilding them from the elements.

Squash - HUGEMONGOUS plants with several fully formed and preparing themselves for my dinner table.

Watermelon - I don't see anything yet but a creepy crawly vine spreading it's tentacles about the garden. Will it bear a watermelon?....several of them? Who will I give the watermelons to because I don't really eat watermelon? Maybe I will eat watermelon this year...and lots of it. All mysteries.

Strawberries, basil, pepperoncini, jalapeno's, the "wonder pepper" (yes, that is what it was called when I bought it...so that's a mystery in itself)...all doing well.

Then we have the old growth around the yard - the orange tree, the lemon tree, the fig tree, and the grape vines. I just pruned back a lot of grapes to allow the grapes I left to have more sustenance so they will be bigger. Someone gave me this tip. If this makes them bigger, perhaps the seeds won't be so bothersome.

One gardening uneducated man.....one small suburban lot - sitting on so much abundance that he'll have nothing to do but share with his neighbors.

This is a story about the greatest mystery of all - God. He truly is a wonderful Father. This is a wonderful metaphor to show that He provides for His children much more than they need, without that much attention, and despite their actions.

I think it is time for me to sign off - and spend some time with Our Father to thank him for being so good to us all in so many ways.

Would I like to unlock the mysteries of God? - I only think that doing so would diminish Him. I think I'll be content with leaving things as is and enjoy His great mystery.