Before the calendar turned over to the month of May, the first fruits of the Spring garden were ready for harvest. Never mind that the bounty was modest- a handful of tender fresh turnip greens, a few cool-season culinary herbs, and a single blackberry. The joy of stewarding food from seed to harvest paid not the slightest bit of attention to the size of the yield.
The greatest delight, however, was that lone blackberry.
For my birthday this year, my sister gave me two Prime Ark Freedom blackberry plants. When I picked that first blackberry, the canes had been in the ground only a few weeks. I hadn’t even had time to build a proper trellis for them.
But, the plants paid no mind.
There, as plain as day, nestled among the tiny green berries, fresh leaves and delicate white blossoms, hung one plump, perfectly ripe blackberry. It seemed almost impossibly early, proudly announcing itself as the first fruit on the cane–a quiet herald of the harvests still to come.
That single berry would have disappeared in two bites. Measured by weight, it was insignificant. Measured by what it proclaimed, it was abundant.
Scripture calls these early gifts firstfruits–the first visible evidence that a much greater harvest is on its way. Long before the wagons were filled with grain or the baskets overflowed with fruit, the Lord invited His people to notice the beginning. The first ripe fig. The first cluster of grapes. The first sheaf cut from the field. They were reminders that His promises often arrive quietly before they arrive fully.
Perhaps that is why I stood in the garden smiling over a single blackberry.
It wasn’t simply fruit. It was reassurance.
The Lord delights in encouraging His children with small mercies. He rarely reveals the entire harvest at once. More often He offers enough to strengthen our hope and invites us to trust Him for the rest. One blossom becomes many. One berry becomes bowls full. One season of tending gives way to another, until the garden bears witness to His ordinary faithfulness.
The older I grow, the more I treasure these small beginnings. The world celebrates abundance, but God so often begins with enough to remind us that He has not forgotten us.
Not every firstfruit is measured in pounds or bushels. Sometimes it is measured in hope.
And perhaps that is the sweetest harvest of all.
