Rectory Ramblings

Plant your seed in the morning and keep busy all afternoon, for you don’t know if profit will come from one activity or another—or maybe both.                          (Ecclesiastes 11:6)

Right now, I’m looking at my 30 odd pots of bean, marrow and courgette seeds, 2 seeds to each pot, and not a single one of them has germinated. I can’t remember having a 100% failure rate ever before, but then they say there is a first time for everything. Meanwhile, a couple of months ago I decided to clear a large patch of nettles and ivy down one side of the garden and carve out a bit more vegetable space from a very weedy corner of the lawn. That was when I hit what felt like buried stonework. Some exploratory digging followed by some more excavation gradually revealed a well laid and edged path, buried under the lawn, a good borders width from the wall and fence. And then a good afternoon’s work with loppers and spade in what looked like a small dirt bottomed trench running close to another of the garden walls revealed a sunken garden, small but bigger than I thought it was, and complete with steps leading down into it, and a paved floor. So I now have a sunken garden that I am not yet sure what to do with, and a vegetable border all ready for my non-existent seedlings to go into. Still a plant sale or two and maybe a visit to a garden centre or two should sort out both of those minor problems. Though the fig tree does not blossom, and no fruit is on the vines; though the produce of the olive fails and the fields yield no food; yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will exult in the God of my salvation. 

(Habakkuk 3:17-18)

What is perhaps more important than the uncertainty and disappointment is the unexpected treasure I have discovered, meaning that for relatively little effort, this badly neglected corner of my garden is nowlooking much more loved. And as so often happens in life, I am now enjoying the unexpected blessing of God in benefitting from the hard work of those who came before me. Indeed, it is often when we are facing our toughest setbacks, testing times or hardships, that we find God’s blessing and help in the most unexpected people and places, that carry us through to the joy of the other side.

“God made a promise to Abraham, […] saying, “I will surely bless you and multiply you.”  And thus Abraham, having patiently endured, obtained the promise." (Hebrews 6:13-15)

Revd Eddie