THE HARVEST IS RICH
FROM SEEDS OF THE HEART
Journal of Healing – Nov. 22, 2006
By Mary Koch

            The children in our church have been learning a song about harvest and thanksgiving. In a church as small as ours, when the children learn a song, we all learn the song.

            Children’s songs tend to be simple and repetitive, like advertising jingles. Sing it once, and the song continues to play over and over in the background of your mind. All week long I’ve been silently singing:

            It’s the season of harvest

            Of gathering in

            The fruit of the field

            And the heart.

            I love life’s synchronicity. With that jingle chiming in my head, I received an e-mail that reminded me how I indeed harvested fruit from seeds that were planted in my heart. The letter was from a woman I haven’t seen in many years, but I have vivid memories of her and her (then) very young daughter, Whitney.

            Whitney is 21 now, her mother wrote, and living in a group home with other severely disabled individuals. She functions something like an infant of four to five months.

            “She is medically very fragile, nonambulatory, nonverbal and has no muscle tone. She is still working on head control. Her greatest skill, to date, is drinking through a straw,” wrote Whitney’s mother.

*     *     *

            I REMEMBER Whitney so clearly not because of her disabilities, which were apparent even when she was very young, but because of the way her family doted on her.  They displayed, in public, a powerful, naked love as they cuddled Whitney, talked to her, smiled at her, neither expecting nor receiving a response in return.

Without words, they quietly taught all around them about the value of life in the face of severe disability, about the ability of mere mortals to take on unimaginable challenges, about the ability of the heart to withstand and embrace the most devastating pain.

            Over my years as a journalist I’ve interviewed and written the compelling stories of many families like Whitney’s. I somehow assumed that people who dealt with profound disabilities were made of some special fiber, had some kind of genetic make-up that I didn’t share. Certainly I could never cope with challenges like that.

            And yet, you never know when it’s going to be your turn at bat. Thank God for all those seeds planted by Whitney’s family and others.

*     *     *

AFTER MY husband’s stroke, as he lay in a rehab bed totally paralyzed and breathing only with mechanical assistance, I asked the doctor, “Will he ever be able to go home?”

            “Anything’s possible,” she said, planting a potent seed to be nurtured through hope. I didn’t know how I could provide 24/7 care. It wasn’t part of my genetic makeup, but I couldn’t imagine not doing it.

            Being unable to care for himself was certainly nothing my husband ever anticipated. Not only was he a self-sufficient man, he was the one who cared for and about others, always on the move, juggling tasks, solving problems.

I don’t know who planted the seeds in his heart that allowed him to embrace life in his motionless, mute state. I suspect it began with his parents, two creative and stubbornly determined people who knew, and no doubt taught, how to endure what life dishes out.

            And more than endure. Writes Whitney’s mom:

            “Whitney shows no recognition to us, but I know without a doubt that her heart knows us. She melts into me when I hold her.”

            Another seed. A glorious one.

            My thanksgiving prayer for us all is that we receive and plant those good seeds in our hearts, nurture them and – in God’s time – reap the bountiful harvest.

© Mary Koch, Omak, Washington 2006

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