I’ve been watching some tenacious tomatoes growing in our vegetable patch. Among a crop of normal tomatoes spreading up against trellis on a wooden paling fence, a few have grown very weird. They must have flowered in the gaps between the fence’s wooden palings and from there, they’d begun growing unnoticed in that confining space.
Murray Smith
What I’m describing is a really difficult place to ever mature if you’re a spherical tomato – I mean it’s a gap of about 2.5 centimetres (or one inch).
When I first discovered these oddly shaped tomatoes, they were firmly wedged in the gaps, still remaining determined to grow. Unable to grow in girth, they’ve resorted to growing in length. Now I have these unusually elongated tomato ‘extrusions’ exercising the only option they have – that is, to continue to grow longer. In doing so, they’re jamming themselves further into their wooden surrounding.
I don’t know what their future looks like. Will they ripen into fully fledged tomatoes? And I’m uncertain how you would harvest them since they are immovably imbedded, having grown the way they have.
Since this isn’t a gardening column, I’ll get to making my real point. Looking at these poor tomatoes, I felt a strange sadness – they reminded me of a state that many people arrive at. Trying to manage the hand they’ve been dealt, they’ve become stuck. Growth of any type doesn’t flourish optimally where constrictions and constraining factors are at work. Yet over a lifetime of journeying, things are likely to occur that could restrain our personal growth – if allowed to. When setbacks are not handled well, it easily ‘shapes’ us negatively, distorting our outlook on life.
Recently I watched a story of an incredible young African American, Darrius Simmons. He was born with one finger on his left hand and three fingers on his right hand. As a toddler he had both legs amputated and later had prosthetics fitted. Darrius was blessed with a grandfather and a mother who steadfastly encouraged him to never accept limitations.
A natural musical gift was nurtured through involvement growing up in a church environment. At 14, as a self-taught pianist, Darrius was recorded playing. That video was posted on-line and went from hundreds, to tens of thousands of views, ultimately going viral. That acclaim resulted in Darrius being invited to play at the prestigious Carnegie Concert Hall.
Adversity has not defeated this gifted writer composer. Using prosthetics to use piano pedals and his four fingers to play, Darrius is a champion for refusing to let difficult circumstances constrain his development and progress in life.
Where some people take on board despair and hopelessness when experiencing setbacks, others refuse to argue for their limitations. I have noticed how often those with a strong faith in God seem especially enabled to find hope and perspective in spite of really difficult challenges. The good news is that there’s someone who has been where you’ve been, cares and knows exactly how you feel. Nothing betters experiencing the comfort and help from knowing Jesus.
