Rejoicing in God’s Creation

 

 “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening; and there was morning—the sixth day.”

Our five little garden beds are becoming packed with growing veggies: tomatoes, sugar snap peas, bush beans, iceberg lettuce, green peppers, egg plants, broccoli and brussel sprouts. The beans and brussel sprouts were started inside the house, from seeds planted in tiny containers.

When we transplanted them into the beds, and later added vegetables that were more mature, we tried to put the ones that would eventually take up the most room with a few that wouldn’t spread out so much. Actually, a few took up more room than expected and are crowding out the smaller plants, like the green peppers that are now being overshadowed by the large leaves of the brussel sprouts.

It’s always exciting when the harvesting starts. The lettuce never did form heads; however, its leaves are very tasty and have been the basic ingredient of several salads. Only two broccoli plants have produced so far…enough broccoli for one night’s dinner. It would have cost less to just buy packaged broccoli at the store; but it was fun watching them grow.

 Same with the large tomato plant. So far there have been only two ripe tomatoes, but there are many more on the way! Of all of the veggies planted thus far though, the sugar snap peas have done the best, growing upwards, intertwining their stems and crowding out everything else in the 4x4 bed.

We’ve already enjoyed fresh steamed peas, with more to come. Fresh vegetables taste much better than canned or frozen, especially when it comes to peas. I remember how my mom tried to convince my little sister, Jan, that peas were really good by calling them “little green bubbles” and even hiding them in a piece of folded bread with butter, like a green pea sandwich!

To this day Jan still doesn’t like peas, claiming that she even picks them out of chicken pot pies! Maybe if she had been involved in planting and harvesting the peas rather than eating them from a can, she would have developed a taste for them.

Al has always had good success with growing peas, even having such a surplus that he was able to sell them at a roadside vegetable stand in Porterville. Of course, he planted four long rows each about 20 feet long with only 5 or 6 inches in between each plant. What we’ve planted will be plenty for the two of us.

As I was shelling peas one night before dinner, I thought about the efficient packages they come in. Their pods are sturdy, waterproof and hard to open, affording good protection  from the elements, birds and insects. Inside the pod, each pea is connected by a small stem, packed together tightly besides several others all the same size and shape. An engineer with a packaging major at a university couldn’t have designed it any better! 

God’s wisdom and creative design can be seen in all of creation and even in the “packaging” of the food we eat. When you are husking the next ear of corn, take a good look at the way the individual husks are tightly wrapped around the kernels on the cob. Otherwise more of the corn we eat would be wormy!

In the Old Testament book of Proverbs, the voice of wisdom speaks about the wonder of God’s creation as from the mouth of a skilled craftsman: “I was there when he set the heavens in place, when he marked out the horizon on the face of the deep, when he established the clouds above and fixed securely the fountains of the deep, when he gave the sea its boundary so the waters would not overstep his command, and when he marked out the foundations of the earth. Then I was the craftsman at his side. I was filled with delight day after day, rejoicing always in his presence, rejoicing in his whole world and delighting in mankind.” (Proverbs 8: 27-31 NIV)

This same God uniquely designed and created each of us. Just think, He took great delight in His creation…and He takes great delight in us, His children. As we surrender to His plan for us, we become the people He created us to be. May we live in such a way that He will proclaim, “It is very good!”

*Genesis 1:31NIV