Persistent Hope Grows Good Fruits

By: Tara Brelinsky

I have a love-hate, care-neglect relationship with plant life. Really, I want to love gardening. I want to take credit for a blooming landscape in my yard. I want to care for my houseplants and watch them flourish. But, piles of laundry, home school lessons, ten thousand calls for “MOM,” and the needs of everyday living in a household filled with two and four-footed beings beckon louder than do the green (or sometimes yellow) things rooted around me.

Knowing my thumb is anything but green, I still decided to contribute to the family garden this year. However, if I’m being honest, it was for no other reason really, than it seemed a shame to let that vast expanse of raised beds in the yard sit empty. I mean, what would the neighbors think?

So, with that half-hearted intention, I filled some plastic trays with peat pellets weeks ago and planted a seed in each one. I put forth my best efforts to remember the project and watered it accordingly. However, only about half of the seeds sprouted. I planted them in the garden beds.

And, after some contemplation, I decided to re-seed the peat pods that hadn’t produced, rather than write them off as a total loss. What was the worst that could happen, I reasoned. So, I retrieved the seed packets from the storage basket and re-seeded the pellets for a second time.

Within a short interval, two of the pods begot new sprouts, but again the rest appeared barren such that I was resolved to give up hope in them entirely.

Then, this morning, approximately two weeks after the second-string sprouts erupted, I stumbled upon another new sprout. Admittedly, the pods were actually bone dry when I checked them because I’d forgotten to water them for a few days (as I said my thumb’s hue isn’t any shade of green). And yet a single resilient seed still produced growth.

I could have thrown the non-producing pods away after the first go-around, but I suppose it is in my nature to hold out hope longer than others do (that is at times a blessing and at other times a fault). I certainly could have pitched the non-sprouters at least a week ago because at that point I was convinced nothing more was coming.

Yet, there stands a little sprig of new life today. And how right on time it is for me. Because that tiny plant reminds me that even when the environment is parched and conditions are less than ideal, growth can still happen. Hope is a powerful force.

Of course, it also seems right to acknowledge that reality must also be a factor because if I hope this little, persistent sprout is going to provide me with juicy, red tomatoes then I am going to be disappointed. It can’t because it came from a parsley seed. So, hope is necessary, but so too is an expectation based on truth.

Friends, life sometimes looks and feels parched and unproductive. Some days, there can be a real temptation to forgo hope. But growth can happen and new life can spring forth even in the midst of this. Today, I am thanking God for once again teaching me to place my hope in Him. Today, I am grateful to Jesus for never abandoning this little, dry heart of mine. Because He will bear good fruit in and through it.

Tara K. E. Brelinsky is a home-schooling mother of 8 living children, with 6 more heavenly ones. She works as a freelance writer and speaker. Tara lives in North Carolina with her family and a small menagerie of four-footed creatures. You can read her musings on her blog Blessings In Brelinskyville or listen to her podcast The Homeschool Educator.