Talking With God in the Bean Patch...

                                      Talking With God in the Bean Patch     

Every year when April arrives I get my hoe, rake, and plow out and go to work on my vegetable garden. With care, I lay off the rows only to look behind me and see they are just about as crooked as an old mountain pathway. But, that doesn’t matter! Because my husband once told me, “Don’t worry, honey, you can get more in a crooked row.” I drop the seeds usually putting three together and place them a few inches apart. I cover them over and stand by impatiently waiting for little  sprouts to pop through the ground.If it takes more than a week to see anything I panic!

This past spring, I had a very hard time planting a garden. The rains continued to come. I had to prepare the ground repeatedly… but finally the weather cleared up, the ground dried out and I planted. As those cute little plants started poking through the ground I was there with the fertilize  and pest control to give them the best care I could possibly give them. Each plant took off growing beautifully and so did my pride… I was going to have a bumper crop after all. I started planning all the things I would do with my little veggies. To swap words in the old saying, I started counting my jars before the vegetables grew.

The green beans grew tall and bushy and heavy with blooms. However, that was all I was seeing….Blooms came and disappeared, then more blooms came, but no beans. Every day I would make a trip through the bean patch and could not find one tiny bean on all those big, beautiful plants. “What is going on,” I asked myself. I have chopped and cleaned out all the grass and weeds, fed them “Miracle Grow,” and still, NOTHING. I talked to them daily- sang them a pretty tune…Still, nothing!!! There just did not seem to be anymore I could do.

Finally, one day out of disappointment, I sat down in the middle of that bean patch and I began talking with God.    

        “Lord, you know how hard I have worked on these stupid beans. You know how much my husband loves them but I have done all I know to do to make them grow so as of this minute I am leaving it all up to You...If you could give me enough green beans to cook my husband a pot or two, I would be grateful to You.  Thank You, Lord, for all the tomato plants that are hanging full of little green tomatoes, and the potatoes are just waiting to be tossed in a pot with a 'mess of green beans.'  Oh, by the way, Lord, thanks for all the okra,squash and cucumbers. With those You have supplied me abundantly...Amen!"

I talked with Him a while longer and we shared a smile or two. It was a good talk and I left the garden feeling less discouraged. God does that for you. If we just take the time to have a little talk with Him, He makes everything seem better. No problem is too small or too large for God.

 I didn’t get back in the garden for a while because the rains moved in again and stayed around for a few days.  At this point, I was about ready to give up on having a garden. Things were just not looking good.

Several days went by and I finally walked down to take a look at the beans thinking I would plow them up and start all over while I still had time for planting. I stooped over and pulled one of the plants forward... and what a surprised I found. There were little green beans everywhere.  I ran from plant to plant. I could not believe what I was seeing. They were running all up and down the plants.I was so excited I could hardly breathe. (I get just excited over big as well as small things). All summer those beans never stopped producing. It was late fall when I finally cut them down.

The moral of my little story is this…No matter where you choose to talk with God, He hears you. Moreover, He answers the simple little prayers just as well as the big important ones. I believe He gives us reminders to shake us out of the "Me" thing. We can plant seeds, hoe them, keep them clean of weeds, and even water them; but it takes the loving hand of God to make them grow. That is the way I see it...

                          

May your day be blessed,

Mary Frances King~

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 An update......

 A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted. Ecclesiastes 3:2


This story of Talking With God in the Bean Patch is the second one I wrote for my blog...I would like to give an account of my garden for the summer of 2011. I ended up canning around 38 quarts of green beans and gave several large bags of them to my neighbors. I cooked so many of them until I finally had to give it a rest, because we sorta' got tired of green beans every day, or two... I am always amazed at God's work. He gives me blessings every day and He is far better to me than what I deserve....I learned something more about this incident and that is to never give up on God. 


I opened a couple jars of those beans and had them for supper recently and they were delicious. It was as if I had gone in the garden and picked them fresh. I thought of the day I talked with God in the bean patch and I smiled to myself...Thank You God, I whispered...