One of my FAVORITE experiences is coming up this weekend ⭐️General Conference⭐️ and it’s got me thinking about many things. Particularly, this cucumber. And the Law of the Harvest.
A few months ago I posted that we planted a garden (ish…a square foot box with a few potted friends). And we moved forward with the common mindset of, if we build it they will come…if we plant it, they will grow.
Behold, the single cucumber.
That’s right. After nourishing, digging, planting, and dunging ALL SUMMER LONG we yielded one cucumber from that foliage-rich plant. (I will confess, what quickly came to mind was the Savior cursing the fig tree…)
What happened to, “And by their fruits ye shall know them?”
As I’ve pondered this, I can feel He’s teaching me a life principle and a bigger question.
How often do we focus our time, energy, love, and ability on someone or something–doing our part–only to find at the end of the day we are asking a similar question asked years ago in a highly successful Wendy’s burger campaign…”Where’s the fruit?” (or the beef…).
I’ve heard from many women this same question but for different scenarios. Such as, we had family home evening, scripture study, I took them to their meetings, worked beside them on personal progress, slogged through the Eagle Scout requirements, and now they don’t even want to be part of the Church…Where’s the fruit? Or, I’ve put blood, sweat, and tears into this relationship for years only to find out he has a pornography addiction and a secret second life…Where’s the fruit?
Or, I’ve been praying, fasting, reading, and sanctifying, and I still don’t have the answer…Where’s the fruit?
Sometimes the reality is, the Lord gives us one cucumber. And we think, Are you serious? That’s it? Do you know everything that I’ve done?
And then comes the choice to step back and see the bigger picture. The longer planting season.
I think about what Heavenly Father and His Beloved Son do for me on the daily. From the moment I wake in the morning to the moment my head hits the pillow at night–and even the quiet space in between–Their tender mercies are numberless. Their nourishing love, compassion, and teaching me how to access the Savior’s enabling Atonement is absolutely constant.
I can feel that He is more concerned with the direction I’m growing than with the immediate one-season harvest.
“But others fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit, some an hundredfold, some sixtyfold, and some thirtyfold.” (Mathew 13:8)
Note the different yields–yet they all came from good ground. Sometimes our yield will be a hundredfold, and sometimes it will be one solitary cucumber.
As I pondered this, I looked at our cucumber with renewed appreciation. And all that the earth, sunlight, rain, watering, and keeping the deer out, had gone into making that one vegetable. I then made it into a beautiful salad.
I know there are more cucumbers to come. I also know that the process is more important than the temporary yield. And I also know some harvests are on the vine and some are inside our souls.
What matters is we show up, keep watering and dunging and digging, and loving the other laborers. That we do our best to produce good fruit, inside and out.
Even if today, it’s one cucumber.
P.S. To get more information and to watch General Conference, click here: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org
P.P.S. To become your Sure Self, click here to watch my latest webinar: https://conniesokol.vipmembervault.com/products/courses/view/22
