Finding My Faith Identity in a Strawberry Field
By Jessica Brodie
Have you ever had an experience that truly crystallized some story in the Bible as if you’d never understood it before?
Recently, it hit me that I only have a few precious years left with all four of our kiddos in the house. My oldest turns 16 in December and just got his beginner’s driving permit, our youngest just turned 12 and started playing football, and the girls and I now trade clothes. They’re no longer kids but teens, in that odd halfway place between childhood and adulthood, and time spirals fast and hard.
We decided we’re now going to do one interactive family activity every weekend, whether that’s hiking or bowling or camping out back. Recently, we headed to a local strawberry farm to pick berries.
You would’ve thought I was torturing them. “It’s soooo hottttt,” one moaned.
“Can I just sit in the van where it’s cool?” another huffed.
The sun blazed bright and scorching as we each got our giant white plastic pails and fanned out among the neat green rows. The boys went one way, the girls another, and my husband and I danced between the two, searching for the reddest, ripest beauties. And, of course, everyone lightened up and had some fun. Cam and Will had some competition going as usual, while Avery and Allie hunted for the biggest and the brightest.
And I was having a ball! It was so much fun to bend and pick my way through the leaves, hunting for that perfect ripe berry nestled in, just so.
“Look at this!” I’d cry, seizing two flawless strawberries and gently tucking them into the bucket. “Ooooh, and this one!”
One strawberry was so big it looked like a heart in the palm of my hand, and I snapped photo after photo on my cell phone.
It hit me as I rooted through the strawberry field that we were engaged in something much like a treasure hunt, panning for gold in the mud or digging deep into sand for pirate’s booty. Our prize was far simpler—though I have to admit the strawberry shortcake and instant-pot jelly I made later that afternoon were pretty phenomenal. But the basic gist, hunting for juicy red treasure amid the green, was the same.
I found a heart-shaped strawberry!
My stepdaughter and husband show off their berry treasures.
My strawberry shortcake later that afternoon.
It reminded me of Jesus’s words to His disciples in Matthew 13, when he explained the Kingdom of Heaven and the relationship between God and those who would gain eternal life.
“The Kingdom of Heaven is like a treasure that a man discovered hidden in a field. In his excitement, he hid it again and sold everything he owned to get enough money to buy the field. Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like a merchant on the lookout for choice pearls. When he discovered a pearl of great value, he sold everything he owned and bought it!” (Matthew 13:44-46 NLT).
Picture that—God picking through the sand for that one pearl, or picking through the weeds for that one healthy kernel of wheat, just like I was picking through those strawberry plants, passing over the unripe or rotten berries for one that was “just right.”
That night, cuddled on the couch with my husband and kiddos watching TV, I thought back to our day in the strawberry field and all the treasures we’d found that were now in our home.
As God’s people, we’re just like those good berries, collected into the bucket and taken home for a new destiny. We are precious and special, beloved by our “master gardener,” good fruit in a world of weeds.
It might not always feel that way. Some days we let culture define us, telling us we’re not pretty enough, thin enough, smart enough, or special enough. We get caught up in mistaken identities, thinking the right job or house or relationship will make things right.
God sees through all that. He finds His glorious, ripe, beautiful strawberries even beneath the most tangled of undergrowth, in the darkest corners of the field. He seeks, and He finds.
How can we ripen best under God’s sun? How can we help those around us thrive and grow, too?
This week, wherever you are in life, remember how much you are loved and seen—and wanted—by God, now and forever.