We never know what kinds of fruit may come from the seeds we plant.
Last weekend, my hubby, my mama, and I decided to take a look at some old scuppernong vines that my grandmother planted over fifty years ago. They were a complete overgrown mess. They hadn’t been touched or tended in at least twenty years. The original trellis was on the ground.
Trees had grown up around the trellis and the vines received very little sun. Briars had grown up into the vines along with both sweet gum and pine trees.
The entire situation looked irredeemable. Could there possibly be any life in the middle of that dead mess?
My Daddy, who was working on another project, looked over the fence at us and said, “Lois planted those. They were the sweetest, golden berries you ever tasted.”
Could my grandmother’s planting work still be viable after all these years of neglect?
We began to search for life among the rubble.
My hubby noticed right away that there were scuppernong vines climbing the surrounding trees. Vines have to come from a root. We started cutting and tossing.
To our happy surprise, when we cleared the debris from the top, we found many mother vines rooted deeply in the ground. When we snipped a little closer to the roots, we could see they were very much alive.
We marked them with pink flag tape and began cutting and tossing everything that hindered their growth. My hubby grabbed a chainsaw and took down some trees that were blocking the sun.
It was a lot of hard work as we searched, cut, raked, and hauled. We all had scratches from the briars, but in the end, we had the promise of a fruitful life restored.
The following day, Mama woke with the desire to check on the other vines my grandmother had planted. These were the bigger ones where we often found the most fruit when I was a kid. Again, we found the same situation. There were brambles, briars and trees, but when we cut and removed what wasn’t supposed to be there, we found plenty of living, rooted vines. Delighted, we tagged them as well.
We will soon put in new trellises with strong cables to support those old, but living vines. We will install some type of watering system and we will wait and hope.
As children of God, we are all in the planting business. Sometimes we get to see what we plant on this side of Eternity and sometimes we don’t. Sometimes what we plant lives long after we are gone, but, that is not for us to decide. All we can do, is plant as much as we can while we are here and trust God to do the rest.
Some old scuppernong vines reminded me. Perhaps you needed reminding too.
Have an awesome day!
Wendy