Pastor's Summer Article

Dear Friends in Faith,
This northern transplant has learned some lessons recently about gardening in Florida. I would like to share two of them with you.
The first lesson is this: Don’t let your plants get stressed or they will go to seed too quickly.
When I planted my basil and tomato plants a couple of months ago and seeded some pots with dill, chives, and cilantro; I didn’t yet quite understand the difference between an Ohio summer and a Florida summer. I was thrilled as my plants flourished and produced like crazy—in the first few weeks. But before long things had changed dramatically under the unyielding summer sun; the plants were drying out faster than I could water them, and they began nature’s desperate attempt to survive—namely going to seed. The once-lush basil and tomato plants and the thriving dill and cilantro shot up almost over night, and now I have only tall, spindly stems with seeds waiting to pop and drying branches with small tomatoes trying to develop seeds before they die. The stress of the heat of the bright sun has made the plants grow old before their time.
Could not the same be said of us? Do not the stresses and strains of life cause us to grow old before our time, too? This month researchers reported in the Science Daily that stress does, indeed, hasten the onset of gray hair; and watching people over three decades has convinced me that those with serious stress levels in their lives have grown weaker, older looking, and less healthy than those of similar ages who have been able to avoid such stress. Unfortunately we can’t just add more water and fertilizer to regain vitality and youth like we can to aid ailing plants. What we can, do, however, is to reduce the stress of our lives by letting God handle what we cannot. Too often we try to “tough it out” when it comes to life’s challenges. Instead we ought to accept our humanness and embrace our limitations and let the gentle rains of God’s Spirit water our parched and drying souls. Certainly we would age much more slowly and live more lush and productive lives for Christ!
The second lesson I learned is this: You have to pull the plugs out of the pots before it starts to rain.
Several weeks ago some friends from the church brought us two pink mandevilla plants. They were gorgeous, and their climbing tendrils promised a summer and fall of beauty. I bought two trellises and dutifully planted the flowers in new pots at the entrance to our home. Then the rains came. Day after day the pots were flooded, and each evening I tipped them over, trying to get rid of the excess water; but little by little the blossoms fell and the vines grew brown. Eventually there was nothing left to save; the rotting roots and stem died, and the decaying leaves that had fallen into the pots gave off an offensive smell. All of this could have been avoided if only I had pulled out the plugs at the bottom of the pots to let the water drain out.
There are seasons in our lives when we are deluged by cares and woes, times when troubles pour into our lives and threaten to overwhelm us. If we bottle up these cares, if we hold in these troubles, they will destroy us as surely as the floods destroyed the mandevillas. We need to learn to uncork our lives and let the cares of daily life find a way out of our lives. We must drain out of our spirits the hurts and regrets of life before they destroy our beauty and rot away our insides. We dare not remember all our pain nor obsess about our failures, but rather let the grace and pardon of God take away our sin and unpleasant past.
Nature is God’s first window of revelation, and my plants have taught me something for my life. May their lessons help you this summer, too.
With affection, Pastor Carlan