MARS HILL MOMENT: Lettuce Worship!

Our amazing God teaches lessons in the smallest events of life. Today, I found a sermon in my salad garden -- the 18 inch planter growing 4 varieties of greens, plus chives sitting on my tiny deck.

Dennis and I live 50 miles from the nearest modern grocery store. So... last October, I planned a generous square-foot garden. Reality and our lease allowed me to lovingly sow only my largest planter with a thimbleful of mixed salad seeds.

About a month ago, we added the first handful of sprouted thinnings to a stir-fry. Yum! As the lettuce grew, our menu expanded to a leaf of lettuce for a sandwich... or a delicate frisee' lettuce garnish on a tostado. I harvested enough for home-grown dinner salads for two this morning. Yippee!

After carefully selecting loose leaves and one barely-formed butterhead, I gave my tender treasures a crispening cold-water shower. Next, the generous handful of succulent greenery was tenderly patted dry with a paper towel. Carefully bagged, I popped the morsels into the crisper for tonight's dinner treat.

Walking back to the sink, I noticed a dirty rootlet on the floor, attached to a leaf smaller than my pinky. Humming, I picked it up to uncharacteristically redo the entire washing, patting, wrapping ritual. I normally throw scraps from the floor away. It suddenly hit me: "Why am I going through all this for a tiny lettuce leaf?"

Then God's Holy Spirit whispered, "Because you watched it grow from the very beginning."

That took my breath away. It was so true! I knew that leaf of lettuce when it was a black dot. I watched over it until it grew to harvest size.

As the tears welled, I felt the morning's message, "How much more do I love you?"

The following verses immediately flooded my heart.

Psalm 139:13-16 (The Message)

^13-16 Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out;
you formed me in my mother's womb.
I thank you, High God—you're breathtaking!
Body and soul, I am marvelously made!
I worship in adoration—what a creation!
You know me inside and out,
you know every bone in my body;
You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit,
how I was sculpted from nothing into something.
Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth;
all the stages of my life were spread out before you,
The days of my life all prepared
before I'd even lived one day.