Kids Page: Seeds

TROWEL & SWORD

Resources - Children's Pages

April 2001

Seeds

Anne Groenenboom

“Your garden is looking beautiful, girls, you’re doing a great job!” Dad commented to Amy and Carla as he came in for afternoon tea. The girls flushed with pleasure. They had spent a lot of time recently working in the garden near the front fence and they certainly deserved Dad’s praise. They had saved their pocket money to buy some punnets of seedlings and they made sure they watered the little plants each evening, because the weather was so hot. They watched excitedly as the tiny plants grew bigger, then buds appeared and it wasn’t long before the first flowers came out. There wasn’t a weed to be seen and the garden was ablaze with colour. Even Chris was impressed with their efforts, although he thought his vegetable garden was just as good.

“You’ve done very well, considering how hot and dry it has been this summer,” Mum agreed. “Your snapdragons are such lovely bright colours.”

Amy and Carla continued to work diligently, watering, weeding and picking off the “deadheads”. Whenever people passed by, they told Amy and Carla how beautiful their garden looked. When Mum suggested that it was time to take the snapdragon plants out and put something new in the garden, both the girls were horrified. They said they wanted to keep the plants they had, despite Mum’s warning that they wouldn’t flower for much longer.

“We want to keep them until every flower is finished,” Amy protested. “They’re too beautiful to pull out!” Carla nodded in agreement.

The next few days were cool and windy and it rained quite a bit, so there was no need to water the garden. Amy and Carla stayed indoors each afternoon after school and it wasn’t until the weather finally warmed up that they remembered to check on their garden.

“Mum! Mum! Something dreadful has happened! Come here quickly!” Carla cried as she raced through the back door. Mum picked Joel up and hurried to see what was wrong. The girls looked very miserable as they pointed to their garden.

“All our beautiful flowers are dying!” Amy gasped. “What has happened to them?”

“Don’t you remember that I told you the flowers would be finished soon?” Mum asked and the girls nodded miserably. “Well, the flowers were almost finished and the wind and the rain finished them off. That’s what happened to them.”

“But I wanted my flowers to go on forever!” Carla wailed. “I loved them so much.”

Mum gave Carla a hug. “I know, Carla. I’m sorry you’re so sad, but that’s what happens with plants. Let’s go inside so Joel can play with his toys and I’ll explain.”

The girls followed Mum inside and waited for her explanation. Mum sat on the couch, with the girls on either side and hugged them.

“Remember when we read about God making the world and everything in it? Well, the Bible tells us that when He made the plants, He made them with seeds in them, so that more plants would grow. Do you remember us talking about that?”

Both girls nodded and Mum continued, “Your plants were already growing when you bought them, but they grew from seeds to start with. After they flowered for a while, the natural thing for them to do was to make their seeds and that’s what they’ve done. Picking the deadheads off helps for a while, but when the plant has done all its work, it starts making seeds and then it dies.”

Mum showed them a page on her calendar, with a picture of a plant with a few pretty flowers and lots of seedpods on it. There was a verse written there too.

”The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever.”

“That verse is from the Book of Isaiah and it reminds us about the way God made plants,” Mum explained. “Let’s go outside and see if we can find any seed pods on your flowers,” she said as she picked Joel up and carried him outside again.

The girls raced out to their garden and sure enough, they found some seed pods on their plants. Mum showed them how the seeds sprinkled out when she shook the pods over Carla’s hand. The tiny black seeds went everywhere as Carla tried to catch them. Mum showed Carla how to scratch the soil and cover the seeds.

“Maybe you’ll have some snapdragon seedlings from those seeds, next summer!” she said to Carla and the little girl looked happy for the first time.

Amy and Carla looked around the garden for more seed pods and they soon had quite a collection. Mum showed them Chris’s garden, full of beans and tomatoes.

“Chris is lucky,” Amy stated. “His plants are still good. It’s not fair!”

Mum gave Amy a stern look and Amy blushed. She knew Mum didn’t like people complaining that things weren’t fair. Mum picked a little red tomato and bit a piece out of it. She showed the inside of the tomato, with its seeds, to the girls. Next she broke a bean in half and showed them the seeds inside.

”Tomatoes are the seed pods on their plants and so are the beans, so Chris’s garden is doing exactly what yours has done,” Mum told the girls. “These plants will die eventually, but because Chris keeps picking the vegetables, it doesn’t happen so quickly.” Then Mum pointed to a few yellow branches further down on the tomato plants and continued, “See, these tomatoes are starting to die already. The others will soon start to go yellow too.”

As soon as Dad came home from work, the girls told him about their garden and they also told him what Mum had explained. Chris listened intently when he heard his tomatoes mentioned, then hurried outside to check his garden. He could see that his tomatoes were looking a bit yellow in places and there were also a few yellowish leaves on his beans, too. He went back inside, feeling miserable too.

After dinner, Dad read to them from the Bible and the verses he chose were from 1Peter 1:24 – 25. The children looked at him in surprise.

“That’s the verse on Mum’s calendar, but doesn’t it come from Isaiah?” Amy asked.

“Yes, Amy, both verses are almost the same, but the verses in Peter’s letter give us more information,” Dad replied. “When Peter wrote his letter, he was talking about the difference between Christians and non-believers. He said that all people are like seeds, that live for a while and then die, but if we are Christians, we are imperishable seeds and we will live forever, because we believe God’s word and believe that Jesus died to take the punishment for all our sin.”

“What does ‘imperishable’ mean?” Amy asked and Mum answered her question.

“It means not dying, but lasting forever. Perishable things don’t last, but things that are imperishable last forever. “

“There’s another thing about seeds that we should think about, as it’s getting close to Easter,” Dad told them. He looked at Carla and asked, “What’s the most important thing about Easter, Carla?”

“It’s NOT Easter eggs and it’s NOT the Easter bunny! The most important thing is that Jesus died on the cross for us, then He came back to life again,” Carla stated, very pleased with herself that she didn’t make the same mistake as last year.

“And what happened before Jesus came back to life?” Dad asked the little girl.

“He was in a grave with a big stone in the front,” Carla replied.

“Well, that’s a bit like what happens to a seed,” Dad continued. “We plant a seed in the ground and cover it up with soil, then what happens is that the seed begins to rot away and die... but as it does, a new shoot grows out of it and it becomes a new plant. That’s the pattern God made for seeds.”

“But how is that the same as Jesus in the tomb?” Amy asked and Dad answered.

“Just as a new plant life comes from a seed buried in the soil, new life came to us because Jesus was buried in the tomb. He died so that we could live forever.”

“May we read that verse about God giving His Son?” Carla asked and Dad read John 3:16 for her.

“God really does love us, doesn’t He if He gave us Jesus!” Carla commented. “Joel doesn’t know that yet, because he’s only little, but we’ll have to teach him, won’t we?” Everyone nodded in agreement.

SOME THINGS TO DO:

Together with your family, read 1 Peter 1 : 24 – 25 and discuss what it means.
Look around your garden for seed pods and make a collage with them. Print the words of Isaiah 40 : 8 on your display.
Grow some seeds on wet cotton wool and notice how the seeds rot away as the new plants start to grow.

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