Lessons from Our Limping Backyard Fruit Harvest

One of our family’s favorite* songs is “Living My Best Life” by Ben Rector. What we love about this song is its celebration of having a meaningful, ordinary life that is far better than fame and more beautiful than we’d expect.

My favorite line from the song goes, “sometimes [it’s hard], to tell the truth/ I took it hard like people do/but I’m learning how to eat the fruit that is in season.”

“I’m learning how to eat the fruit that is in season.”

The line has stuck with me for a few weeks, tumbling over and over while I’ve started to gather in the motley crew of crops from our backyard trees.

The peach tree ended up having just two giant fruits remaining after the rains this summer and hungry squirrels who hop from our privacy fence. The pear tree’s baby pears from June disappeared completely. The grapes were bountiful. The figs finally coming in handfuls after several years. The apples looked rough but were more than we’d ever gathered. All in all, a definitely mixed fruit basket of accomplishment.

As I’ve filled my shirt with harvest here and there, I’ve been thinking of five lessons I think we can learn from fruit and this season.

1. Two things can be true: the tree might be sick and have room to get healthier AND we can rejoice in good gifts from it. I think the temptation when it comes to reflecting on people, institutions, families, or practices, is to either glorify the fruit ignoring the state of the tree OR to only focus on the disease without acknowledging the grace in fruit that still cooks up sweet. Somewhere in the middle is this holding the good, marveling that it came from a scraggly source by the grace of God while also learning what needs to be healed in order for more health and longevity. It was our Eritrean refugee friend who told us the variety of tree we chose was disease prone in our state. Those who are considered on the margin may be the voices we need the most in amending the soil and flesh of our faith communities, families and culture.

2. We have to pay attention to when fruit is ready: When we were deciding when to pick our Rome apples, I searched for which signs I needed to heed. The Orchard Project website said this, “How can you tell when ready? You know when an apple is ready to pick when you cup it in your hand and give it a slight twist, and it comes off in your hand. If you need to give the fruit a yank, or it leaves its stalk behind, or even a bunch of leaves, it is definitely not ready!” These sentences read like poetry to me. Sometimes people, projects, character, or changes take so long to arrive that we get impatient. We long for our kids to just GET ALONG ALREADY, for those we mentor to finally be able to lead on their own, for our spouse to take the next step in his or her emotional health. If we’re not careful, we might yank, trying to force new life when it could be much sweeter if we notice subtle signs that someone is ready to walk into it herself. This takes patience, the discernment of a community of believers and the nudges of the Hoy Spirit to be done well, I think.

3. Sometimes the battle for good fruit is won or lost far before harvest: And sometimes what seems like loss really is gain. I have the hardest time pruning back fruit, thinning out seedlings. It seems harsh, wasteful, and tedious. I want ALL the carrots, ALL the peaches. What if the weather or the wind takes the fruit I leave, and I’m left with nothing? And then fall comes, and I look at the roots I didn’t thin. Sure, I have more of them but they are often stunted, growing in odd directions or not very deep at all. Those who had plants removed on either side reach down more straight and true. Making decisions that form ourselves and our families means that for everything we choose to do or say yes to there should also be something laid down. Can we “do it all?” Maybe, we can come close. We can do every activity, try to incorporate every faith practice, read every book or take on every leadership position but we might find that in the end, the results are meager or twisted or just not very deep.

4.Not all fruit is ready at the same time or even the same year. Two years ago, our fig tree had two whole fruits on its branches. Last year, we had all of five sweet pockets. This year, we’ve had more than we can count…somewhere around 30+. I think when we look around at other’s lives, we think, well, why can’t my children memorize verses like theirs? or why do I still make the same mistakes even when I’ve been on a journey of learning about my privilege for years now? or I’ve studied and been faithful; when will I get to use my gifts? In Michigan, the growing season is different than here in Virginia. Things bloom at different times, some fruit is less productive but sweeter, some things can’t thrive in certain types of weather. It’s the same with those questions and those like them: some fruit takes time. Some fruit comes more easily in certain seasons. Some fruit needs the right combination of conditions to come in abundance. Jesus says he is the vine and that God is the gardener, so we can be assured that good fruit will come if we stay connected to him, in the right season and time.

5. Don’t forget to actually enjoy the harvest. I don’t know what it is, but every year around September, I forget I’m supposed to be actually eating the fruits of summer labor. Green beans grow tough on the vines, apples drop and are forgotten, cherry tomatoes that once seemed like treasures languish on among overgrown zinnias. I think sometimes, we focus so much on growth, on getting soil just right and weeding and eliminating sin and slugs that we forget why we do the tending. Hebrews 12:2 says “for the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” Love. Joy. Peace. Patience. Kindness. Goodness. Faithfulness. Gentleness. Self control. These are WHY we choose spiritual practices that keep us and our families healthy. This is WHY we do emotional work and steward our bodies and time and money well. There’s well-being in living in the way of Jesus. There’s treasure in staying close to him and shepherding others to be close to him as well. Last night, we ate skillet apples for supper. The harvest wasn’t perfect but our tree had born fruit, and that was very good.

Bonus #6: Sometimes fruit just lands in your lap. Like these paw paws from the tree next to my children’s school. Every year the ground gets covered with the squashy, sweet, creamy fruit that is sort of like a mango. We did nothing to shape this tree. We didn’t water it. We didn’t plant it. We didn’t prune or treat or enrich it…we just receive its goodness. Some of the fruit that comes in our lives, the lives of our children or our community is just God’s grace. It should evoke praise, humility, and gratitude for the One who can make feasts in unlikely places.

As we move into the fall,

• In what ways can you hold the truths that there is good fruit and there can be better health in our lives and the lives and places we love?

• What signs that change or character is ready to emerge do you see? What signs might mean more patience or training or maturity could be needed?

• What are we saying yes to that might require a laying down of something else for the future health of ourselves, our families or our communities? In what ways are you choosing to sacrifice good things in order to not sacrifice eventual growth?

• What is one step you can take to trust that God will help fruit emerge at the right time and stop comparing our growth to others?

• How can you celebrate what has come from grace+stewardship+time instead of just focusing on the work?

• What unexpected graces can you praise God for that you did nothing to earn?

*While we love the song “Best Life,” please do know that there are two lines our kids know not to sing along to out loud that some families might want to avoid. There’s one instance of “never thought I’d be a grown-a** man” and one “looking at things like what the actual he**.”