Here is another gardening tale from earlier summers to share with you.
A gnarly, misshapen apple tree stands in the northeast corner of our backyard, where it’s grown for the past twenty-some years. It serves as a byway for squirrels and a landing pad for sparrows. It produces seemingly hundreds of crabapple-sized orbs of red and green-spotted fruit. The apples infrequently grow to full-maturity, for whatever reason, and fall to the ground, littering our hammock area. Sometimes the resulting windfalls attract ants or slugs, and other times the fall is sufficient to bruise their ruby skins.
I find myself growing irritated over the pesky little unripe fruits that make a mess on our otherwise smooth-flowing carpet of grass. They seem to create such a waste of my time and energy, besides appearing to have little or no redeeming value. My husband threatens to chop down the tree at the end of each growing season to make room for something more productive.
As much as I might agree with him, there’s something endearing about the ugly little tree that can’t seem to hang onto its bounty until harvest. I find myself admiring its continual production in spite of serious challenges. There is an ongoing trafficking of squirrels and birds added to occasional heavy breezes. The little branches bow low under the weight of their maturing fruit that can’t quite hold on.
However, the windfalls themselves, as imperfect as they are, do serve a purpose. My husband delivers daily bucketfuls of the immature apples into my kitchen, hoping there will be enough flesh between the imperfections to provide another batch of his favorite dish of applesauce. A lot of cutting and removal is involved, resulting in almost as much waste as the final product. The delightful aroma of simmering apples permeates the house, making an adequate amount of pulp, to which I add mapley brown sugar and cinnamon. I let it chill in the fridge, and behold, we have a delicious treat to use as a side dish or a snack.
This just goes to show you that many of God’s creatures (including some of mankind) that appear to have no redeeming value, actually do. Perhaps we haven’t yet discovered their use, or are too busy or blinded by our own prejudices to see. No doubt my friend’s son with mental challenges who can be so irritating with his repeated questions and embarrassing actions is of great value in God’s eyes. He might not be too important in ways the world understands, but his service to mankind is less obvious. Doesn’t his joy in life despite his hard circumstances bring those with healthier minds to gain a renewed gratitude, even a desire to lend a hand?
I can think of many people with obvious imperfections who could be considered the windfalls in life. Just as I was able to make applesauce out of windfalls, so too, it makes sense to use whatever resources God has given. I have a sense of the way God taught the Israelites to be grateful and use each day’s manna to help them survive when I stir up another batch of applesauce. Yes, I definitely think we should keep the apple tree as long as it keeps producing and dropping those yummy windfalls.
Dianna
Sharing the Fruit of Maturity
