Tomatoes for Polly

I am a member of a group of people who gather at my church several times a week to pray. The eldest member of our group is a widow named Polly who has been the lead prayer partner as long as I have attended at our church. When I first started coming 11 years ago, the church wasn’t nearly as big as it is now, and I believe the growth in number while retaining the flavor of a small church comes through prayer from faithful folks like this friend of mine. Now Polly’s health isn’t the best and she is forced to carry oxygen with her all the time now and her hands are showing the effects of arthritis but she is definitely still willing to lift the banner of prayer high in our church.
We were preparing to start recently and Polly asked if she could share something. It’s funny when Polly asks to tell a story because she speaks these days of the simplest things, which I find endearing because of the joy in her voice and the spark in her eye. So it was with great big smiles we looked at her with anticipation, and of course, she did not disappoint.
Polly said “well, of course most of you know I’m retired”. We all laughed when she said that and rightly so… Polly is in her early eighties and therefore she has been retired several years at this point. “I don’t have much or want for much these days, but I was sitting in my chair at around 9 AM this past week and I told the Lord that I was hungry and said “Lord, I haven’t had a good juicy tomato in a long time, do you think you could see fit to give a couple?” which is a simple prayer really because it was just for a couple of tomatoes, not a necessity, just something I really wanted. So I had kind of forgotten about it and around 10:30 I went outside to get the newspaper and just as I came out the garage door, a woman I knew had pulled in the drive, and I stood there to visit for a few minutes. She reached over into her bucket and pulled out 4 large tomatoes and asked me “Polly, would you like to have some of these tomatoes? I have too many and I need to give some away”. Well I gladly took them and I put em on the table and laughed to myself as I thought of God sitting there chuckling about not just giving me 2 tomatoes, but 4, cause that‘s just like him to give us more than we asked for.”
Of course we all had a great laugh about her story, but it was something much much deeper than that and Polly grew a bit more serious and looked around at all of us in less of a story voice and more of a forewarned tone and said “you know? God isn’t worried about my tomato intake nearly as much as he is my understanding that he is a good father and he loves me very much. I could go on and on about a lot of things, but he just wanted to remind me of his love and he does love me very much.” I was honestly very moved by the amount of sweetness in her voice as she told us about her experience because she had understood the whole thing correctly. She hadn’t missed God’s intentions… He just wanted her to realize that he loved her just because of who she was and wanted to give her good gifts not because she had earned them or been faithful or prayed the right prayer, but simply because he loves us as his children and longs to give us constant reminders of his love. Its not magic, it’s not coincidence…. It was just a matter of him, loving on Polly cause not only did she appreciate it, she wanted to share his story. I wrote this the week she told the story, but I didn’t feel it was time to share it… but today is the right time to share this story. If you have to ask why at this point, then it’s probably not for you, but someone needed this story today… and you need to know that if it’s a car, or a house payment or a job or just to know he loves you… God is just waiting to answer your prayer and give you a huge hug, cause he really loves you (well.. he loves me too.. But you know… Hee hee Hee).
Have an awesome day my friends ; )