Tomorrow's Garden

 

“How was your garden this summer?”  My patient asked me.

“Pretty bad,” I said.  “It was so hot and dry that nothing except the tomatoes seemed to do well.  We got maybe half of the green beans we normally would and just about everything withered up and did badly.”

“Mine was actually pretty good,” the man talking to me said.  “Of course, I watered it.  I’ve got a creek that runs close to the garden and until it dried up, I could put a decent amount of water on the garden.  I think that gave it a good start.”

“Probably so,” I said, gloomily.  “I gave up watering after a week in June when the temperature stayed in the 90s without a sign of rain in the forecast.  I really didn’t want our well to give out or to burn up the well pump.”

“I’ve seen that happen,” my patient agreed.

“I guess it’s the bad garden years that let you appreciate the ones where you have a surplus,” I said, philosophically.  “I see that all of the time with health – it is when people get sick that they realize what a blessing good health is.”

“That’s so true.  I didn’t realize how much my wife did till she got pneumonia.  For a week I was trying to be her and me at the same time and that didn’t work well at all.”

I suppose this is human nature – few people really appreciate what they have till its gone.  The young seldom realize the blessing they have.  They may not have the latest iphone, but they have energy to do the things they want to and joints that don’t hurt when they get out of bed in the morning. 

This tendency, to not value what we have today, means that more often that not we are wishing for the things we used to have rather than being grateful for the things we do have.

“In the day of prosperity be joyful, and in the day of adversity consider: God has made the one as well as the other, so that man may not find out anything that will be after him.” (Ecclesiastes 7:14)

It is a huge challenge to rejoice in each moment, rather than wishing for what you don’t have.  Tomorrow’s blessings will bring with them tomorrow’s challenges and yesterdays gifts had as well a generous helping of yesterday’s woes.  As it is said, today is a gift.  That’s why we call it the present.

If we can simply give thanks for today’s garden, even if all we get is a bumper crop of tomatoes, that would be good.  Tomorrow’s garden maybe better, but then again, tomorrow’s garden will take an awful lot of weeding and care too.