The Lord's Loufa

I had a beautiful garden last spring, full of flowers, herbs and fruit. Then things in my life started going terribly, horribly wrong. I wasn’t prepared. I reacted badly.

As things went daily from bad to worse, I became increasingly distracted from my garden by the devastation in my closest relationships. The garden did well for a while on its own. Then gradually drought and neglect took their toll and the garden fell fallow.

Late in the summer I noticed that a strange vine had sprung up. It had these bright, disturbingly perky, yellow flowers. It grew rampant all over the garden, running amok from one bed to the next. I thought maybe it was a mutant zucchini.

The frost came. Then snow. By Christmas the garden was utterly forgotten. But seed catalogs came in the mail. As tempting as they were, I tried not to look, to consider; definitely not to allow the tiniest dream to moisten and germinate. I would permit no scheme to take root.

January 2nd was such a teasingly spring-like day; so kissed by balmy breezes that I took courage and ventured down to those long-neglected beds. There were strange, dark fruits lying about everywhere. I poked one. It was firm and resilient.

Investigating further, I realized that it was a loufa gourd; the kind some brave folks shower with. I thought about Jonah’s gourd:

And the Lord God prepared a plant and made it come up over Jonah, that it might be shade for his head and deliver him from his misery. So Jonah was very grateful for the plant.

Then came the worm, the devastation, the anger.

God asked Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?” And he said “It is right for me to be angry, even to the death!”

But the Lord said, “You have had pity on the plant for which you have not labored, nor made it grow, which came up in a night and perished in a night...should I not pity?...” (Jonah 4:6-11)

Should I not pity? Lord, you sent me these loufa gourds and as far as I know they’re only good for scrubbing. “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow...create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. " (Psalm 51:7 & 10)