The tomato garden had to have more space. After all, if we were going to do our own canning, we’d have to have some tomatoes left over after making BLTs, right? Well, more than what we could also use in tomato salad, fresh salsa, and pasta dishes.

There was one problem. The forsythia bush that we planted twelve years ago at the corner of the garden had gotten huge. By “huge,” I mean twelve feet across! A rough estimate by eyeballing the space told me we would have enough room for at least a half dozen more plants if the unruly shrub could be exterminated.

I had already tried a few years ago. I gave it a good dose of a strong herbicide on the half that I could reach. The next year, it was bigger and bloomed more beautifully than ever before! That defiant display of persistence moved me to give it a reprieve from execution for a year or two.

As it encroached into more and more tomato territory, and even sent down branch tips to start new bushes, I got out my jungle attire again and started whacking away.

It may have gotten smaller that time, but last year I had decided that enough was enough. Speaking of enough, there still wasn’t enough room for tomatoes! My pantry shelves remained forlornly bare of the scrumptious red delights in shiny jars. My visions of feeding my family through the winter was quashed by the visions in yellow as the forsythia shaded the once sunny garden.

I asked for volunteers to dig the offending trespassers out of the tomato bed and found a lady who wanted a forsythia hedge. She dug out twelve good, healthy plants; but the original one was too large to extricate. We cut it down to practically nothing, except a few wispy branches toward the back that we couldn’t reach. The poor plant must thrive on abuse, because this severe mutilation didn’t kill it.

This week, I’m enjoying the fruits of our failures. The bush has grown several long, arching branches, obviously in an evil effort to touch the ground and produce new plants, as before. They are covered in bright yellow four-petaled flowers! It’s a focal point behind the daffodils in front of the empty tomato bed. I sigh, and think I may as well give up that corner to the stubborn but beautiful shrub.

Some people, like the forsythia, seem intent on living forever in this life, however unreasonable that expectation is. They scrutinize every substance they come in contact with or consume, in the hopes that their diligence will add to their life span.

Then there are others who follow the philosophy of “eat, drink, and be merry; for tomorrow we die.”

One important fact escapes them; physical death is not the end. Those who have accepted God’s saving grace by obeying the gospel will live with him through eternity.

But what of those that do not? “Behold, all souls are Mine: the soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is Mine; the soul who sins shall die” (Ezekiel 18:4, NKJV). Death here is not just ceasing to exist, but an eternal separation from God.

Are you ready to live eternally in the place that Jesus is preparing for you (John 14:1-3) or the one prepared for the devil and his angels (Matthew 25:41)? Both places are forever. We will live on, somewhere, much like my forsythia. But where? God wants you to live with him (2 Peter 3:9).

Choose life.

–Christine Berglund @ www.forthright.net