Summer seemed to have come...
Illustration
Summer seemed to have come without warning. Evelyn was surprised at the late March temperatures that had soared into the lower eighties. She wondered, as she tilled the soil of her garden, if the early warmth was a harbinger of a hotter-than-
normal summer. She hoped not. Evelyn did not tolerate heat well. She paused momentarily to wipe the perspiration from her brow, and thought back to last summer when the garden had suffered neglect because her two teenaged sons had not been able to agree on which job was whose. Jason had insisted that since he had cleared the leaves and branches left from the fall that it was Nathan's job to keep the garden clear of weeds. Nathan had countered that he was the only one who bothered to even water the garden and if Jason thought he had done such a high-and-mighty job of cleaning up the fall debris, he could just continue his efforts by keeping down the weeds. ("And, if he agrees," Nathan thought to himself, "I'll just see that the weeds have plenty of water so they can grow like crazy!") Evelyn had never quite understood all the dynamics involved, but she remembered that early in the summer Nathan had almost drowned the garden and Jason had soon become frustrated at trying to keep up with the prolific weeds. She had tried to help both boys, emphasizing that they needed to work together in order to have the fresh vegetables they all enjoyed so much. This was a line of reasoning that had worked when the boys were younger, but now ... Evelyn was putting in a smaller garden this year, one she could care for by herself. And she was only going to plant flowers -- to bloom and give glory in their beauty to God from whom they, like all of us, would draw life. "Will the boys miss the fresh vegetables?" she wondered. She hoped so, for there was a lesson she wanted them to learn about cooperation; she could think of no other way to teach it to them. -- Fannin
normal summer. She hoped not. Evelyn did not tolerate heat well. She paused momentarily to wipe the perspiration from her brow, and thought back to last summer when the garden had suffered neglect because her two teenaged sons had not been able to agree on which job was whose. Jason had insisted that since he had cleared the leaves and branches left from the fall that it was Nathan's job to keep the garden clear of weeds. Nathan had countered that he was the only one who bothered to even water the garden and if Jason thought he had done such a high-and-mighty job of cleaning up the fall debris, he could just continue his efforts by keeping down the weeds. ("And, if he agrees," Nathan thought to himself, "I'll just see that the weeds have plenty of water so they can grow like crazy!") Evelyn had never quite understood all the dynamics involved, but she remembered that early in the summer Nathan had almost drowned the garden and Jason had soon become frustrated at trying to keep up with the prolific weeds. She had tried to help both boys, emphasizing that they needed to work together in order to have the fresh vegetables they all enjoyed so much. This was a line of reasoning that had worked when the boys were younger, but now ... Evelyn was putting in a smaller garden this year, one she could care for by herself. And she was only going to plant flowers -- to bloom and give glory in their beauty to God from whom they, like all of us, would draw life. "Will the boys miss the fresh vegetables?" she wondered. She hoped so, for there was a lesson she wanted them to learn about cooperation; she could think of no other way to teach it to them. -- Fannin
