Lessons from the Garden: My favorite child / triage

Just to clear things up- I dont have a favorite child.  I love all my kids all the time.  :)

But when it comes to the garden, the tomato is the favored one.  When you have record rains and despite all your efforts, the weeds are taking over, you have to concentrate your energy.  There is only so much time to give to weeding and tending.  Some things don't get attention.  Sorry green beans. 

The tomatoes win me every year.  It could be because the tomato and mayonnaise sandwich is the best thing to eat ever.   It could be because they are so versatile, going in just about any dish I make this time of year.  I can freeze them, I can can them.  I will be tasting their goodness on the darkest days of winter. 

I don't know why I choose tomatoes over the other vegetables, but I do and I am rewarded now with a bumper crop of these jewels.  The green beans are gone, covered by weeds.  The carrots are hanging on, but there has been a lot of rain for those guys to take.  And the beets are there, but I haven't really dug them up to check on them.

Sad to say, I have had to learn how to do triage on relationships at times.  I have had some relationships that I worked really hard on, even when there was every sign that that relationship was pretty one sided and unhealthy.  I have willed a relationship to be more than it was, but the weeds and floods took it away. 

I now have a pretty good radar for when a relationship is going to suck the life out of me.  I don't mean that I wouldn't stick by a friend's side through a hard time; that is the very essence of friendship.  I mean that sometimes a friendship is not live-giving to both people.  One person is getting encouraged, built up and supported and the other person is ignored. 

I don't know that I am explaining it well because it is one of those things that when you are in the situation, you know it.  And before, I would try try try to get another person to join in the kind of relationship I wanted.  Now I know I can only give what I can give and receive what God brings my way. 

It sounds sad to let some friends go, but when you see the fruit prospering in a healthy relationship, it is a beautiful thing.