Last year, I started gardening in my back yard. I planted seeds for some vegetables in my tiny garden. In the spring, everything looked okay. Sun light was good. I also regularly fertilized them. They started to grow, so that I expected a plentiful harvest in the fall. But the situation changed soon. In the summer, some of the tree branches around my garden produced a lot of leaves. They made a wide area of shade on the spot of my garden. Because of the shade, my plants couldn’t get enough sun light even in the summer time and then they couldn’t bear their fruits as much as I had expected. My first gardening had failed because of my ignorance and carelessness about the sun light in the summer.
In this experience, I was aware of the importance of the summer and its productivity. Generally speaking, the summer is one of unwelcome seasons for some people because of its hot and humid weather conditions. Due to this reason, we may have a long vacation in schools and workplaces during summer. However, for farmers, summer is not an unwelcome season. It is a most important season for their farming. The hot temperature and the strong sun light of the summer, which we don’t like, are very necessary and essential for the growth of their plants. Of course, for farmers, it is also not easy to work in the hot and humid weather under the strong sun light. But they endure those difficulties because they know that the strong sun light of the summer makes the vegetables and fruits of their plants more bountiful. They know that the hardship of the summer makes plenty for the fall.
Nowadays, we are also living in many difficulties. The Pandemic in which we struggled against Covid-19 for our lives, is not perfectly ended yet. Some people in another part of the world are suffering from the unjustifiable war led by a strongman. We also have a hard time with a high inflation rate that we can feel from higher gas prices and at the market. What can we do in these difficulties? As the farmers endure the summer, waiting for the fall, we also have to endure the hard times in our faith in God. As the plants grow up well in the strong sun light, if we endure the suffering well through our faith, we can have a faithfully plentiful life. This is because we can know that God loves us in spite of those difficulties. I hope all of us here at First & Wesley United Methodist Church will endure this time of difficulties well in our faith and cooperation with our faithful church family together. We can experience the grace of God in suffering.
“We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us…” Romans 5:3-5 NLT
– Pastor Jinha Choi