Similarities Between My Garden and the Bible

There is a parable in the Bible about a Shepard who leaves his ninety-nine sheep to go and find the one lost sheep. I have heard this story at least a dozen times as it appeals in both Luke and Mathew and every time I have heard it I have a hard time wrapping my brain around why you would leave 99 unattended just to find one. What if you came back and now three were missing?

This week I went away for four days and left Russ in charge of watering my garden. He did exactly as instructed, but the days were hotter and the sun was stronger and when I came home my yellow squash plants were in distress. Now most everything else was flourishing. The tomatoes have grown well over my head. The cucumbers are producing many fruits. The okra are about to start providing and the zucchini are doing well.

This morning I went to work in the garden and for the first time I understood the parable of the lost sheep. I was unconcerned with working on anything but my yellow squash, even though everything needed some tending. My yellow squash might have been lost, but I wanted to try and save it, and let everything else tend to itself.

Perhaps I never fully I understood that story because we have only one child. I have not had to split my attention and pay all of it to someone in need and be hopeful that the rest can survive on their own.

It does sound crazy to liken a squash plant to a sheep or worse a child, but when you raise something from infancy you feel committed to it. I did prune the plant of any failing foliage and I hope that will save it. If not I will have to be satisfied with the harvest I have already had from that plant and tear it out and replant something else in its space. Gardening is an education all the time, kind of like the Bible. You can read and not embrace every story until something similar happens to you.