Firstfruits

We got home from our weekend at Lake Arrowhead to find the tomatoes had finally started to ripen, and my cherry tomato bush was covered with shiny red fruit. Bliss! Today, I went out and picked the first fruits of the season, and oh! They are the best. Sweet as candy, and rich as butter. And as I carried a little bowl into the house, I thought about how long I waited for this day: How the 2009 and 2010 tomato crops were both epic failures, producing little to no fruit at all. How each year I patiently planted, watered, nurtured and waited as each plant grew from a tiny speck of seed into a dainty baby life. How I placed each seedling in the garden, watered, weeded, staked, caged, pruned, and pinched off premature flowers as I encouraged it to grow. I hoped. I loved.

It takes so much faith to plant a seed and hope for fruit. You have to believe that this dry little speck somehow holds life in it, and that if watered and nurtured it will grow into something mighty and beautiful. It takes faith, and hope, that the sun will shine and the rain will fall, and the work you do will we rewarded with fruit and flowers.

Today, as I carried my little bowl of first fruits into the house, I suddenly and inexplicably started to cry. This is my third summer as a gardener, but today is my first day as a harvester. And I finally understood what it meant to give your first fruit, your very best, as an offering to God. This bowl of tomatoes is such a small token of thanks, and yet it represents so much of me. It represents three summers of labor, of love, of care and attention, and even of frustration and failure. These fruits are my very first fruit, and they are the best. Giving your first fruits means so much more than the obligatory 10% tithe. What you are saying, in effect, is "here God. Here is the thing I have been wanting and working toward for so long. I have been waiting so long to enjoy this thing, and I want to give it to you instead of keeping it for me. I want to honor you first, and give you my best, before I take any for myself at all."

And I cried. I can't even explain very well why I cried. I think it's because it's the first time I have ever wanted to give an offering to God. It's the first time I have felt like I was giving an offering because I wanted to honor him, and thank him, for the harvest. To acknowledge the blessing of sun and water, and that the success or failure of my tomato crop is in his hand. It's the first time that giving wasn't something to do out of obligation, or duty, or guilt. And it feels so silly that this little bowl of tomatoes means so much, because it one respect, they are hardly worth much money. Even for being sun-ripened, organic tomatoes hand grown by an OC houswife, I doubt they are worth more than $5. And yet, they are so very, very valuable to me, being the reward for all my labor, and the best I have to give.

All I can say it thankyou. Thankyou, thankyou Lord, for your abounding mercies. Thankyou for the sun, and the rain, and good sweet earth to plant these little seeds in. Thankyou for the miracle that is life. Thankyou for tomatoes.

PS - I also picked these cucumbers today! Mm, I can already smell the pickles.