Local Lay Minister Susan Heads shares her thoughts of how the unfolding events, in light of the Corona-virus (Covid-19) measures, are affecting her and offers encouragement and insight through our faith in Jesus Christ.

Simon’s tomato plants have just spent their first night outside, they have been spending their days on the wall outside the dining room, coming it to the windowsill overnight, but last night, they stayed in the greenhouse, and the plan is to move 2 to bigger pots, 3 to a trough and 3 to a grow bag today, the other 3 have been offered for adoption and will be moving on to their new homes over the next couple of days. The first thing I did this morning, after washing my hands of course, was to go outside to see how they had fared overnight. I thought they looked happy, standing side by side (except for one, social distancing from the rest on the other side of the greenhouse because it had a touch of greenfly) upright and proud in their little pots. Simon was concerned a few days ago that the stems did not look strong enough to resist wind and rain, but they seem to have acclimatized nicely, the warm weather, and frequent watering, having encouraged them to put on a spurt in growth. Curious though that they are so upright and straight of stem, they are supposed to be “tumbling” varieties, that grow more bush like than upright. We will watch with interest to see how they develop from here. Although we can feel proud of our achievement, having nurtured them to this time in their lives, all we have really done, apart from a lot of worrying and staring at them, is put the seeds in the compost, added water, and introduced them to the sunlight from time to time – and left the rest to nature. We will continue to do the same - worry, water and watch as their lives unfold, as they individually deal with the hazards of life, greenfly, slugs, heavy downpours of rain, wind, cold nights, and look forward in eager anticipation of the fruit they will produce. I think we are all like those tomato plants, we are planted where we are, fed and watered, with hazards to deal with every day, our father in heaven watches over us, cares for us. As St Paul says in his first letter to the people of Corinth “ … be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord, because you know that in the Lord, your labour is not in vain” and we also will produce fruits in abundance.

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