Harvest. Our garden provided abundantly throughout the summer and keeps giving. Lettuce, spinach, beans, peppers, carrots, tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, cantaloupe, pumpkins, raspberries.

Each summer, this garden reminds me of the same truth—I can’t out-give God. I plunge seeds into the dark earth in spring. And then this. So much blessing. Too much blessing. I must give the goodness away, or it rots and smells.

Sometimes, I don’t get what I plan. Like this year.

I wanted nine pumpkin plants. I opened the pumpkin seed package and poured the contents into my hand. I planted, watered, and waited.

Turns out I got six pumpkin plants and three zucchini plants! The seed pack was contaminated. I vowed last year I’d plant only one zucchini because I couldn’t keep up with the harvest of three plants that produced a bag of green baseball bats before I had a chance to pick. I swear those things grow a foot overnight.

Again, this year?

Fewer pumpkins. More zucchini. Either way, we’ve had more than we need of both and our harvest has blessed more than just us.

Isn’t that the way with our whole life?

 

~     ~     ~

 

Twenty years ago this week, Todd and I were in St. Petersburg, Russia, sitting on an orphanage couch with the sun glinting through white laced curtains hanging long from the windows behind us.

We waited in the appointed room, anticipating meeting our new daughter and son for the first time. Finally, they appeared on the threshold of the room. Anna, then called Alla, her hair chopped short to keep lice at bay, and Zachary, called Sergei, his face pale with dark circles under both eyes. The orphanage director leaned down and spoke softly to Anna, pointing to me. Zachary, in his pink Lion King sweatshirt and pants, and Anna, her eyes wide with excitement, ran full-steam ahead across the red-hued Oriental rug between us.

“Mama!”

She landed in my open arms and settled on my lap. Pulling away just enough to look me straight in the eyes, Anna’s brown penetrated my blue. She uttered something in Russian. Our translator helped me understand.

“I’ve been waiting for you for so long, Mama!”

He translated back my words.

“I’ve been waiting so long for you too!”

I was thirty-eight. She was two months shy of six.

Anna hugged me again and began scavenging through my purse, pulling out the red apple she ate whole—seeds and all—and a banana I helped her peel. Of all the interesting items in my purse, she wanted the food? Was she so starved? I’d never felt hungry like that. But I had felt hungry, even starved, in another way.

 

~     ~     ~

 

Infertility and unsuccessful interventions had stolen my dream, so I thought.

Then, God planted another kind of seed in me, one I never anticipated. The adoption seed grew in my heart—our hearts—until we plucked three, a half a world away, and began growing a forever family together.

Then, some more surprise seeds sprouted shock and grief.

Todd and I expected developmental delays when we adopted from the orphanage. After all, our kids were nearly six, four and two. Poor nutrition and lack of stimulation would surely slow their development. We thought proper interventions would help them catch up, eventually, until they all started showing signs of challenges professional testing confirmed. Multiple, permanent, invisible disabilities probably stemming from fetal exposure to alcohol in all three kids.

Suddenly, we knew our garden would not look like any other we had ever imagined.

Suddenly, our family of five became a “family” of eighteen. Over the last twenty years, we’ve met regularly with thirteen different specialists helping all our kids’ needs.

We never knew all these “seeds” would be intermixed in our “pack.” We never knew the dear friends we would make and keep, even twenty years later.

And God just keeps on giving.

Every time we have a need, God answers our prayers with perfect provision. Of course, not always in the time I used to think was best. I know better now. God’s timing is always perfect for producing His harvest in our lives. God always comes through when He’s ready.

So, when the days get hot and muggy, when the rains don’t come when we want, when the water doesn’t seem like quite enough, when the ground cracks and cries, we hold on. And He holds us.

Harvest is coming.

Remember, my soul.

And the harvest will be beyond abundant, always giving more than was planted, blessing many.

 

Today, September 20, we celebrate Zach’s 24th birthday. On this day, twenty years ago, we feasted on his first birthday cake, on his 4th birthday. We celebrated this miracle child, a failed abortion attempt (he knows). God had a plan and purpose for his life—for all our kids’ lives—for all of us.

Today, we celebrate God who plans, plants, provides, and harvests more than any of us can ever imagine.