Fruitful

I can’t stop thinking about these flowers and trees I have seen on my in-laws property in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan the last few years. You have to brave the tall grass, ticks, and mosquitoes to find them. They were planted probably forty to sixty or more years ago and have been untended for decades. Yet they grow wild now, blooming and bearing fruit with abandon.

I think about the people who planted them. They were likely hopeful Finnish homesteaders trying to make a living off of a cold and rocky land. Only a few of the structures they built on this property are still surviving, maybe the sign of a foundation or a well here or there. Their dreams of a permanent place to call their own and a farm to pass to their children and children’s children didn’t last here. And yet a legacy of sorts lives on in these flowers and apple trees, as well as in the house, barn, gardens, fields, and forest my in-laws have built over their years on the land.

It reminds me: dreams don’t have to come all the way to fulfillment for them to bear fruit. The wild and the untended are beautiful in their own way. There are surprises to be found in the wild overgrowth. God tends His garden. There is a legacy to our efforts that lives on after we move on. Nothing is perfect in this life. Dreams don’t always look like what we expect, but that doesn’t mean that beauty isn't the result.