Down there in the dark

4:33 p.m. Today's project was to rescue our Roma tomatoes (the pear-shaped ones that are excellent for tomato sauce) from the critters who have been boring holes into some of them and ruining this perfectly tasty and useful fruit!I haven't sprayed for worms in a while, having seen relatively little damage, but today's discovery made me go a little crazy!

Steve and I were watering and harvesting tomatoes and cukes from the center rows, when I picked up a bright red Roma and a slimy, almost translucent white creature came up out of it, from a hole it had bored! I screamed and dropped it on the ground, noticing that the hideous thing had two small horns--it was the very first slug I'd ever seen. (I guess I've led a sheltered life!) I knew enough to drop it onto hot, sunny, hard-packed ground, instead of in the cool shady undershadows of the plants! I wasn't always quite so dainty--one memory of blistering summer fun was putting snails in the 110+ sun in Redlands with my sister, then, "adding salt to the wound," watching them melt and bubble up! Kids have a stomach for gore, don't they?

We lifted up the plants and found a veritiable world of beetles and assorted tiny critters enjoying the moist shade. I wish I could charge rent at this "pest motel!" All of the other garden crops-- corn, peas, green beans, cucumbers, cantaloupe, tomatillos, peppers and strawberries--either stand up tall or their fruit is not heavy, so there's good ground clearance. But this is my second year with a "bumper crop" of tomatoes, and those plants are weighed down with their bounty!

This was war! Seems I use that phrase a lot in my garden...I got Steve to hammer a few large stakes down into the midst of the plants, and tie them up, because far too many tomatoes were lying down on the ground, and even in the irrigation ditches, because of the weight of even the small tomatoes.

As I pondered the evil creatures down there in the dark under my precious plants, now suddenly exposed to the light of the sun, I couldn't help but be reminded of Ephesians 5:9-14, concerning our new life in the Lord--the journey from darkness to light!

For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of the light (for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth), finding out what is acceptable to the Lord. And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them.

For it is shameful even to speak of those things which are done by them in secret. But all things that are exposed are made manifest by the light, for whatever makes manifest is light.

Therefore He says:

"Awake, you who sleep,
Arise from the dead,
And Christ will give you light."

From darkness and death, to light and life--that's the journey believers in Christ have made! Make that journey for yourself, by repenting of your sins and confessing that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, able to save you and give you eternal life in heaven with Him--today!