Doug Creamer: A second harvest

Published 12:00 am Saturday, August 3, 2024

By Doug Creamer

My garden has been weighing on my mind. With all the hot weather, I haven’t wanted to work in the garden. The recent slightly cooler temperatures encouraged me to get out there. The weeds had taken over in two of my raised beds. I wanted to take back my garden beds and get them growing vegetables again.

I got two wheelbarrows full of weeds and spent vegetables out of the garden. I did get a small harvest of potatoes and butter beans out of the weeds. I was glad to get something out of that space. Once the weeds were gone, I planted seeds in hopes of getting a nice fall harvest.

Most years, I try to replant my garden around the beginning of August in hopes of getting a second harvest. It is normally hot, so I will work late in the evening when it is cooler. I have actually been out there as late as midnight, weeding and planting my garden. I worked until about dark getting the two beds cleaned out and planted.

Last fall, we got some of the best green beans that I have ever grown. We are hoping for the same result this year. I always plant some sunflowers for the birds. I have tried some broccoli and lettuce. I tried some pumpkins a couple of times, but they weren’t ready for Halloween. One year, I had a good crop of peas and beans but lost them all to an early freeze.

I never know what will produce and what won’t before we get a frost. Some years, I have gotten lucky with some late tomatoes. It is hard to imagine cold weather when we are so hot. I have been lucky with late gardens in recent years, but gardening is a game against Mother Nature. Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose.

I am not a big gardening gambler. I will wait until the average last day for frost before I plant and I will use sheets to cover plants if a frost is possible. Sometimes, I take chances, especially with a fall garden because I like to watch things grow. Planting seeds and watching them pop through the soil stirs hope inside me.

It should be the same in our spiritual lives. We should share our faith in Jesus with others. When we do, we are planting seeds in their lives. No one knows which seeds will grow and produce a harvest. We don’t know if our words or actions might be the thing that helps a person turn and accept Jesus as their Savior. We know the results if we don’t share our faith.

The trouble is that it is hard to share our faith. We take the risk of being rejected or ridiculed, or called a hypocrite if we aren’t perfect. Since we know that we aren’t perfect, then the risk factor increases substantially. The other factor is that the enemy whispers to us that we aren’t worthy of sharing our faith. We know ourselves, so we sometimes listen.

We have to take our eyes off ourselves and look to Jesus. Do you want anyone to miss eternity in heaven with Jesus? I don’t. That means I have to swallow my pride and put all those worries and concerns out of my head. I need to be willing to take the risk, open my heart, and share why I believe in Jesus. There are so many ways God has come through for me in my times of need. Those stories are my testimony to God’s love for me. Those undeniably true stories can penetrate the darkness and hard hearts that I hope to reach.

Your journey of faith is a story that reveals the hand of God in your life. It reveals His faithfulness. It illustrates His mercy and forgiveness. It tells of His grace. It magnifies the depth and breadth of His love. It exposes His compassion and tenderness. Your story, my story, is worth repeating to anyone who will listen. It can melt the hardest heart and bring light into a lost person’s dark world.

I encourage you to share your story with people. To those of us who are saved, it encourages us as we deal with the daily struggles of life. To the lost, it offers hope that there really is a God who cares deeply about our needs and wants. So many people see God as being far away when in reality He is really close. Our stories illustrate God’s love in vivid detail. Take the risk; you never know whose heart might be ready to respond to God’s love.

Contact Doug Creamer at PO Box 777, Faith, NC 28041 or doug@dougcreamer.com.