The Vines.

"Did you see that sign?"

My Farmer pulled the car into the parking lot and turned it around to go back.

We drove up the driveway and stepped out.

A man opened the door from the house and pronounced:

"Couldn't let them go to waste..."

as we smiled back.

I try diligently to grow our own:
pruned those vines;
checked them often for those pesky, tiny worms that will gobble up the fruit when it is still small as a pin head.

Growing our own grapes has been on my

"really want to have them," list
but with very little success.

I love the taste of them, love the grape juice made from them,

and the jelly.

I never tire of grapes, but it seems we never get much from our vines...

yet.

But we will, I know.

I may be 80 when we finally get the crop that I dream of,

but I'm going to keep working on them

until I see my vines hanging with the weight of enough grapes to let me eat my fill

and enough juice to last us the whole year through.

Every year, because our own grapes prove disappointing,
I have to find a source for the grape juice we love.
One year, I found somebody through Craig's List,
but that source did not come through the following year.

Last year, I went to the auction and asked an amish man if he knew of a source of unsprayed grapes,

and he pointed me to his wife.

She sold my a huge box for a reasonable price,

but even better than that, she gave me the best canned grape juice concentrate recipe I have ever come across.

Those grapes were doubly worth it to me.

This year, when I saw our grapes were only good for the kids to pick off and eat and share with the ducks who siesta under them in the mid afternoon,
 

I called the Amish woman.

She told me she wouldn't have any this year because all her Amish friends had already staked claims to them.  I was highly disappointed because I thought she would be my grape source until my vines improve.

So I gave it up.

No fresh grapes to eat,
no delicious smell of their sweetness,

no juice.

I figured I was not going to find a source for grapes, so I should just let it go

and concentrate on the other good things we had to eat.
  

But God says He knows how many hairs are on our heads,

how many less there are today,

how many more gray ones are sprouting up.
 

God cares

about the little things.

I knew that God saw my vines,

He saw my heart's desire,

and although He certainly didn't have to,

He gave me as much grapes as we could pick that afternoon.

He knows what it is like to have an unfruitful vine.

He knows the pleasure of one abundant with grapes,

and He cares.

I read this verse this morning and I am always so thankful for the truth of it,

how much the simple things matter to God:

"Delight thyself also in the LORD; and He shall give thee the desires of thine heart.

Commit thy way unto the LORD; trust also in Him;

and He shall bring it to pass."

Psalm 37:4-5

I don't feel like I am very diligent at 'delighting in the Lord'
or that I commit everything to Him.
I tend to resign myself to disappointment and move on;
so I am even more amazed when He provides little things,
like grapes.

But He does,
so I feel the need to share it:
because the least I can do is thank Him by sharing how sweet His love is...

as sweet as the fresh purple grape plump full of delicious juice.



Linking up to:
 Jennymatlock.blogspot.com: Alphabet Thursday Letter V


(The tree at the end of this blog post was used in my recent art sketch;
if you'd like to see it, you can view it >HERE<).