Carol McClain

A Lesson From Tomatoes: They’re Useless Unless Eaten

By: Carol McClain   carol_mcclain

I love tomatoes. Red is a vibrant, passionate color–but the yellow is happy, orange a blend of happy and passionate. Even the purple-streaked tomatoes pique my interest.

Of course I don’t like them just for their color–but their smooth texture, and the weight of them in my hand delight me.

Every year, I eagerly await early summer when my crop ripens. They bend the vines with their weight–little globes of happiness dotting my garden.

Grocery store tomatoes are awful pieces of cardboard, so although these are my favorite veggie/fruit (whether fruit or vegetable is a blog for another day), I never buy them in the winter. Therefore it would be silly if I didn’t mention what I love most about tomatoes. Their taste.

Because they’re delicious, I’d be a fool  to leave them on the vine, especially after: weeding around them, mulching them, pruning them for months before they ripen. To enjoy tomatoes, I need to pick them and bite into the succulent orbs. Perhaps, with an overabundance, I need to boil them into a pasta sauce and can them for a winter’s gloomy day.

Best of all, I love to share them with my friends.

So, too, with us. God produces beautiful fruit in our lives. He makes us loving, generous, diligent, patient, kind. He gives us unique talents. Some of us are musical, some are great administrators or fabulous with numbers. Kids, for some people, are bundles of life-energizing DNA.  If we take this fruit–this mature, delectable  character and talent God built into us and just admire it in ourselves, we’ve wasted our lives.

We are meant to be shared.