Tape, A Tomato Plant, and Hope

My daughter brought home a tomato plant from the nursery where she works, and I thought it would be a great idea to go plant it at her grandma’s house while she’s out of town. Hopefully there will be ripe tomatoes greeting her when she returns from Arizona.

We found a pot at my mother-in-law’s, with soil in it, but the tomato plant was too tall and mature to stand up on its own.

This is when it pays to have a teenage son who loves old MacGyver episodes. I confess that I asked out loud, What would MacGyver do if he were here?

I told my daughter we needed a stick. She looked around and grabbed a U.S. flag from the top of the fridge in the garage.

I found a role of masking tape. (Not the classic MacGyver duct tape, but close.)

So now there’s a patriotic tomato plant standing tall and proud in front of my mother-in-law’s house, and I’m pretty proud of that.

Every time my son and I watch MacGyver (bonding, people), I always declare, when MacGyver finds himself in an impossible situation, Well, this must be the one where he dies. The last episode. But no. Always, always there is a solution. It just requires imagination.

This me leads me, I hope not irreverently, to Paul’s words in Ephesians 3:20 (NIV), “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine…to him be the glory…”

We bring the impossible situations.

God brings the great imagination.

There’s always hope.