JulieLeung.com: a life told in tidepools

Spring 2002 – perhaps it was my maternal instinct, my pregnancy cravings for order (rather than pickles and ice cream) – I chopped away at the weeds in the strip of woods that border our yard. This involved pulling out lots of blackberry vines which grow thick and wild here. Between how I hacked the plants, and the fact that I gave birth to a baby last summer, I don’t know if we had any berries to harvest, and if we did, it was far from my mind.

But this spring, I didn’t get out to weed as much. While catching up on yardwork last week we noticed the berries growing on the line of our lot. So this morning we went out with containers in hand to collect the fruit. The vines are prickly and hard to reach, but we were able to gather at least a couple cups of blackberries. The girls got purple fingers, faces and stained shirts. Also a few scratches on the legs. I showed them how to pick the pink huckleberries, the ones I remember eating during recess in the woods behind the playground.

For three summers now I’ve had my own garden and enjoyed growing my own fruit and vegetables. There’s a delight in enjoying what one’s own hand’s have produced, literally eating the fruit of my own labor. It’s great to watch the strawberries grow or the zucchini blossom and then carefully water, care, pick and cook them! There is pride and satisfaction, a sense of justice and reward.

But today I realized that it is different to enjoy something that we did not nuture or plant, sow or grow. There is a special grace in the gift. We do reap what we sow but sometimes grace allows us to reap what we did not sow. This abundant blessing of berries now seems even sweeter. How wonderful to be able to just enjoy the harvest: to taste Grace.