It was the mid-1930s during the grim and devastating years of the
Great Depression. Financial tycoons who lost massive fortunes in the collapse
of the stock market jumped to their deaths from the tops of ten story
buildings. Weary mothers, tired of hearing their children complaining of
endless meals of beans and bread, offered to iron three baskets of clothes for
their neighbors for 50 cents. Husbands carefully carved out layers of thick
cardboard to insert into the ragged and worn shoes they wore to work. Children
eagerly consumed pieces of salty ice left behind on the streets after the ice
truck pulled away.
Our family was not exempt. With seven children to feed, Mother and
Daddyfought desperately to keep our heads above water while reminding our
family continually that God had never failed us yet.
Times were hard. Incredibly hard.
The garden behind our home in upstate New York had always
flourished. Daddy was a competent gardener and every year mother stocked the
shelves in our cool cellar with a variety of home-canned vegetables. Though
very sickly with pernicious anemia and consumed with arthritic pain, she used
her imagination to give us nutritious, though usually meatless, meals.
Before each meal, we bowed our heads as Daddy began the blessing as
usual: “Our gracious, loving heavenly Father.” I have yet to meet a more godly
man.
His prayer life was
legendary, his knowledge of the Word was unparalleled and his love for His
heavenly Father and all His children knew no bounds.
Like many wives, it was my mother’s responsibility to make sure the
bills were paid each month. When my father’s take-home pay from his job at the
Lehigh Valley Railroad became less and less and finally reached a critical
stage, Mother had a conversation with Daddy that went something like this:“You
know, dear, we’ve always tithed but now we’re unable to because our bills are
mounting higher and higher with no relief in sight. We might even lose the house
we’re trying to buy because we’re way behind in our mortgage payments. I
suggest that we plant half the garden for our pastor and the other half for
ourselves. That way we could at least give something to the Lord’s work.”
My father very reluctantly agreed. Placing the tithe envelope in
the collection plate every Sunday was something Daddy did with joy and
thanksgiving. It was a time of worship for him, of sacrifice, a means of being
obedient to God. Still, he knew the gravity of their financial situation and
faced the realities of it with resignation.
The next day, Daddy used his hoe to draw a line down the center of
the garden. With twine and two sticks, he divided the garden into two equal
halves.
Every evening after supper, Daddy carefully hoed and watered every
precious seedling in both sides of the garden, satisfied that he would have an
abundant crop. Still, he bathed the plants with prayer as they began to gain
height.
However, as summer approached, Daddy became anxious and disturbed.
The family’s half of the garden began withering under the blistering sun while
the preacher’s half was thriving. Desperately, Daddy worked to save the
family’s vegetables, using every tried and true gardening method he could think
of.
As the preacher’s tomatoes grew and multiplied, our family’s
tomatoes slowly shriveled and dropped to the ground. The vines of the
preacher’s green beans grew taller than the wooden stakes to which they were
tied, while our family’s’ beans wilted away and died.
As the time for harvesting approached, Mother and Daddy had to make
a decision. One relative insisted that God would surely understand if our
family claimed the preacher’s half of the garden. Another relative accused
my parents of irrational thinking, of jeopardizing their children’s health.
After much prayer, Mother and Daddy decided to honor their
commitment to God and give the preacher the vegetables from his half of the
garden.
The preacher, unaware of my parent’s original commitment, accepted
bags of cucumbers, which his wife skillfully packed into canning jars for
pickles. Bushels of tomatoes and green beans were home-canned by the preacher’s
wife for use during the hard months ahead when church offerings were unusually
sparse. Daddy continued to leave bags of beets, corn, carrots and onions on the
front porch of the parsonage, always grateful that he had at least something to
give to God’s work.
But an amazing thing had occurred all during this summer of
harvesting. Neighbors and friends began leaving boxes and bags of vegetables on
our front porch. Some thoughtful relatives had even canned the beans, tomatoes
and corn for Mother’s cellar shelves. Mother and Daddy were stunned but thankful
for this unexpected generosity from so many sources and at the end of the summer
realized that the cellar shelves were considerably more packed with canned
vegetables than If Mother and Daddy had reaped the harvest from both sides of
the garden for our family.
They confirmed in their hearts again that you can’t out-give God
who promised to “do exceedingly, abundantly above all that we can ask or
think.”
That fall and winter, as Mother and Daddy entertained visiting
preachers and returning missionaries, they carried up from the cellar dozens of
canned vegetables that God had wonderfully provided through caring relatives and
neighbors. Their covenant with God had the unthinkable results of a failed
family garden, but provided a spectacular opportunity for God to reward my
parents’ unfailing faith and uncommon trust that He would somehow provide.
Mariane
Holbrook is a retired teacher, an author of two books, a musician and artist.
She lives with her husband on
coastal North Carolina. She maintains a personal website
www.marianholbrook.com
and welcomes your Emails at
Mariane777@bellsouth.net
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