The Plant

I've had this post rattling around in my head for a while. I thought you might enjoy it.

I'm a plant lover. I've always been a plant lover, since childhood. I have happy memories of helping "Mommy" (adoptive) in the garden. Plants were my little friends and I took very good care of them. I even considered a career in horticulture.

I also attended a Presbyterian church, with incredibly boring sermons. To keep me quiet, Dad used to stuff a Bible in my hands when the sermon started and tell me to read it. I loved reading, so it wasn't a hardship. It was a lot more interesting than the sermons, and probably a major factor in my getting "saved" at age 8. http://www.jesus-christ.com/howtof.htm

So, I'm a born-again Christian and a plant lover. I also have a very difficult time relating to others. I don't read social cues properly and I have mangled many interpersonal "transactions". I was beginning to get pretty bitter. It's just You and me, and the plants, Lord. Nothing else is worth loving.

Until one day when I actually read the book of Jonah. Jonah didn't want to preach to the Ninevites. He knew they would repent and he hated them. That's why he ran away and the whole fish thing happened. He repented, and God released him to go preach. He preached, the Ninevites repented, and Jonah started yelling at God:

Jonah, Chapter 4:
verse 2.
He prayed to the LORD and said, "Please LORD, was not this what I said while I was still in my own country? Therefore in order to forestall this I fled to Tarshish, for I knew that You are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, and one who relents concerning calamity.
3.
"Therefore now, O LORD, please take my life from me, for death is better to me than life."
4.
The LORD said, "Do you have good reason to be angry?"
5.
Then Jonah went out from the city and sat east of it. There he made a shelter for himself and sat under it in the shade until he could see what would happen in the city.
6.
So the LORD God appointed a plant and it grew up over Jonah to be a shade over his head to deliver him from his discomfort. And Jonah was extremely happy about the plant.
7.
But God appointed a worm when dawn came the next day and it attacked the plant and it withered.
8.
When the sun came up God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on Jonah's head so that he became faint and begged with all his soul to die, saying, "Death is better to me than life."
9.
Then God said to Jonah, "Do you have good reason to be angry about the plant?" And he said, "I have good reason to be angry, even to death."
10.
Then the LORD said, "You had compassion on the plant for which you did not work and which you did not cause to grow, which came up overnight and perished overnight.
11.
"Should I not have compassion on Nineveh, the great city in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know the difference between their right and left hand, as well as many animals?"

Wow, talk about a shot to the heart!

I think the chapter said it all, huh?