Pole Beans

I've said before that I love my vegetable garden. We have always planted pole beans. They stand over 7 feet tall. They look great. In recent years, we have cut production down to one 50 foot row of beans. That is still way too much, because picking beans is a real pain. Kathie bottles them on occasion, but one batch produces more than we can eat in a year. Every year at this time I wonder why we plant beans. If they are not picked every two days they get "big and gross" as Kathie says, and I throw half of them away. We do share the harvest with neighbors, but I think I grow beans just to keep me humble. There is a metaphor for life in the effort. Only those who have picked pole beans will understand.

I've never seen anyone pick a row of beans perfectly. The little suckers hide. No matter how careful one is, someone else can come along behind you and find a whole bunch more. I just can't believe that I can be so thorough, then look back down the row and see beans hanging in plain sight. What's with that? I spend an hour picking, and in that time it looks like they need to be picked again. Kathie has often walked along the row behind me picking beans, making smart remarks about my harvesting abilities. It's a frustrating job. It's annoying. I understand why our children so disliked picking beans. Well...our children (with the exception of Andy) hated the garden, or any yard work, for that matter. The fact that I always expected the job to be done perfectly probably did not help. And to top it all off, it seems like we fight a running battle with bugs which cut the leaves in the spring and eat beans throughout the summer. Left without treatment, the bugs will kill the entire crop before the end of summer. Even if we dust regularly, the bugs will leave some beans disfigured so that more must be discarded.

But that speaks to the human condition. No matter how hard any of us try, we will not get through the summer of our lives...perfect. We will all make mistakes...no-one is perfect. Before the final harvest, we will all have faced personal battles...our own weaknesses...or the trials of life...or both. There was only one who ever lived who was perfect. Fortunately our Father in Heaven does not expect us to be perfect. He wants us to give it a good try, but he knew long before we came to this earth that we would fall short of perfection. So He came up with a magnificent Plan for our Salvation. His Son volunteered to implement the key part of the Plan. The Atonement wrought by Jesus the Christ satisfies the demands of justice. Based only upon the condition of our humble acceptance of Him as our Savior, and sincere repentance, He intends to take each of us by the hand, at some future day, and present us to His Father, pure and holy, and blameless...even perfect. Whereas, none of us can harvest beans perfectly, the Savior did not fail in His assignment...and none will be discarded.

So maybe I will continue to grow pole beans. They may remind us to be humble...more accepting of the human condition...more willing to love each other...more willing to love the Master Gardener, who loves us more than any of us can imagine.