The Tomato

Years ago, when my family lived in New Jersey, my mother taught me a lesson I never forgot- the concept of first fruits. Proverbs 3:9 says, “Honor the Lord with your possessions, with the first fruits of all your crops.”

 

 

Every year, when my mother planted her vegetable garden and reaped a harvest, she would take the first fruits of her garden to our church to give them to our pastor. This was her way of putting into practice the concept of this verse in a way that we girls could see. It went above just our tithes. She was showing us that God deserved the first of everything in our lives.

 

This spring, Addie and I grew a tomato plant that my uncle gave us. We have actually succeeded in not killing the plant (which was one of my goals). When we did successfully grow a tomato, we were so excited that Addie ate it before I got to teach her the lesson about giving our first fruits to The Lord. Thankfully, there was another red tomato hanging on the plant so I was able to use this one to teach Addie our lesson. 

 

I explained to Addie that the same way that we give God the first part of the money that Daddy gets for working, we should give God the first tomatoes that we get from our plant, and we do that by giving to our church and our pastor. I can't even begin to describe how excited she was to give the tomato to Pastor! 

 

During our VBS week, Addie took the tomato to our pastor, but didn't tell him why he was getting a random tomato. That evening, I sent him an email explaining the tomato (that it wasn't our very first but  that it did come from our first batch). After emailing each other back and forth, Pastor chose to make Addie and her tomato the feature of his July newletter. Click here to read the story from our pastor's point of view. It was such an honor for something that my mother taught me to not only be passed down to my children, but to be spread to so many others.