July 2024
“Joys and Concerns in Gardening”
“Those who sow with tears will reap with songs of joy. Those who go out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with them.”
(Psalm 126:5-6)
“How is your garden?” one of our parishioners asked me a few days ago. I replied, “My garden is suffering due to wild animals helping themselves to my vegetables, but those that are left are growing well because we have had a lot of rain.” I then showed him some pictures of my garden. The middle part of my garden looks quite bare, like it’s losing hair due to middle age (LOL). Sadly, this is similar to our congregation, which consists mainly of youth and seniors, and lacks people in their twenties and thirties. Nevertheless, I see hope in the middle part of my garden as baby leaves are now growing.
Some of you may know that my passion during the summer is my garden. When I started my garden in 2020, I planted seedlings bought from Walmart, but lost them all to something invading my garden. I then planted seeds again. They grew slowly, but were fine enough. In 2021, I planted seeds a little earlier because I had learned from my gardening experience the year prior. However, some of them were taken by something again. Someone told me they were probably eaten by gophers, moles, or deer. I knew nothing about gophers or moles, so I did some research and learned about them and caught them with my neighbor’s help before starting my garden in 2022. I was happy with my garden because I didn’t find any damage. However, one day, I found some of my vegetables were gone and saw deer footprints in my garden, which I had never seen in the previous two years. Wow, I thought, one problem after another, and it never stops. I was not going to give up so I made taller and nicer fences to surround my garden last year. Wow, I really enjoyed gardening last year. Whenever I saw my garden, I felt so great.
However, I have other issues in my garden this year. Even though I now have nice, tall fences, my vegetables, especially the lettuce and radishes, are gone as soon as they sprout. I tried to find out what was going on. Finally, I discovered that the birds are enjoying my lettuce and radishes. My struggle with my garden never stops, whether it’s because of gophers, moles, deer, or birds. Nevertheless, I won’t stop gardening because I love it so much. So, I replanted the seeds and put nets up. Now, they have sprouted with baby leaves. But my garden still looks empty in the middle part.
Psalmist says, “Those who sow with tears will reap with songs of joy. Those who go out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with them” (Psalm 126:5-6). Farmers may know that they always save some seeds when they plant each year, just in case. However, some farmers can’t save seeds for the next year. They scatter all their seeds with the hope of getting a harvest sufficient for their entire family. They are unable to save seeds for the next year, but they plant seeds of hope every year. Therefore, they sow seeds with tears of hope, without giving up. If they don’t give up, they will eventually reap with songs of joy, carrying sheaves.
Going back to my gardening story, I plant seedlings, or seeds, again and again until they grew well, and I didn’t give up. Like my garden, our ministry is very similar. Our congregants consisted mainly of seniors, without a younger generation. We replanted seeds of hope by refocusing on the children and our youth ministry. Now, we have junior and senior youth groups. It still looks empty in the middle age range of our congregants. However, we continue replanting the seeds of good news with hope, as our mission statement is, “Let us make disciples of Jesus Christ in all generations.” We may see all generations among our parishioners, just as we see baby leaves growing in my garden. Remember, those who sow seeds with tears of hope will finally return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves of abundant grain.
Blessings!
My Garen, 6-24-2024.
Baby leaves grow under the nets in the middle part of my garden