The Gifts of Imperfection

Hello Dear Friends!

I am really late this week with our Garden Newsletter! By now you have received your new box of produce! Among your summer regulars, you have fresh green beans and a new cut of Mesclun Salad Mix! My husband Keith calls this “foofoo” salad and prefers good old iceberg lettuce (about zero nutritional value) — okay, my bias is showing.

I personally like to think of spring mix and all those pretty shaped and colored leaves as requiring a refined palate….as well as a desire to taste the lettuce leaves. Some are spicy and some are chewy and some are ….holey or should I say holy? Set apart by a few overly am-bitious and industrious chewing garden insects.

Did you know that by eating lettuce leaves on the imperfect side you are reducing waste and the use of harmful pesticides? Not to say that we are not attempting to use natural means to reduce the holey-ness of your salad greens!

Garden Reflections: The Gifts of Imperfection

Brene Brown wrote an excellent book on the topic of shame by this name but I want to borrow the phrase for my Garden Reflections to-day. Our team of volunteers commented today on how much energy we spend trying to appear perfect. Instead of admitting our flaws openly, our culture encourages us to hide from the truth of our im-perfections, brokenness and need for a holy God.

As we harvested, cleaned, and chose your vegetables this week, we noticed how quickly we wanted to discard anything less than perfect. We are so glad that our Heavenly Father did not see our sin and simply discard us on the compost heap. He loves us. He knew the cause and made provision for our need to be transformed. We are so grateful that “He (Jesus) who knew no sin became sin that we might become the righteousness of God in Him (2 Corinthians 5:21).”