When Life Gives You Melons

Lea McCarthy relates how an unusual guest in her garden taught her an unexpected lesson about surrender. 

On the spectrum of talented gardeners, I’d like to think I’m somewhere in the middle. I’m not the plant whisperer type like my parents who have years of experience working with all sorts of plants and habitats. They merely have to glance at a packet of seeds and they sprout. I’m also holding to my statement that I don’t usually have a black thumb, with one notable exception being the time I killed a Venus flytrap that was supposed to be able to catch its own food. I think they gave me a vegetarian flytrap at the store, that’s what I’m sticking to. And boy, if I had a nickel for every poor houseplant I overwatered and loved to death over the years, all my gardening equipment would be paid for!

Despite my many horticultural failures, I look forward to gardening year after year. I love the excitement of planning the garden, planting the seeds with my oldest daughter, the delightful day when the first sprouts appear, the satisfaction of watching the plants grow all summer long, and harvesting the crop at the end of the growing season. And fresh produce is wonderful, but the spiritual lessons that can be gained from the garden are sometimes an even greater reward.

Several weeks after we planted our seeds this year, mysterious seedlings began popping up in several of the beds. I could have pulled the seedlings up and let my herbs and beets have their fair share of space, but I decided to watch and wait. This decision was hard to sit with at times because over the summer, my garden was completely taken over by these strange intruders as they outperformed and outclassed the seeds I had actually planted. This crazy jungle was a far cry from the tidy, organized garden I had envisioned!

Looking at this disorganized sprawl of vines, it was tempting time and again to just uproot these crazy things and keep what I had planned. It wasn’t until a rather obvious development occurred that we realized we were parents to a veritable herd of cantaloupe generated from seeds of a fruit we tossed into the compost and forgot about! Now that the mystery crop was revealed, we were delighted with the turn of events. Who doesn’t love a juicy, sweet melon picked right from the garden?

We had so many melons that we gave some away to neighbors and friends to brighten their day. The melon vines weren’t in my original plan, but relinquishing my idea for a picture-perfect garden turned out to be a hidden blessing. I just had to be okay with surrendering control.

The Grand Adventure of Motherhood

Like adventurous gardening, motherhood is a constant, gradual relinquishing of control from the minute you find out you are expecting. Your body suddenly begins to act strangely, and you have no idea what symptom will pop up next. Your body will never be exactly the same again, even if you’re one of those annoying — I mean, blessed — people who don’t get stretch marks. After the baby is born, you quickly realize that despite your efforts, your child’s life is out of your sphere of control. Illnesses happen without your permission. Your child falls down the stairs before you can catch him. You can’t keep up with the household tasks — or if your house looks nice, the yard is a mess, and the children are dirty.

You may have had certain expectations about motherhood, the realities of married life, your child’s temperament, or family size but just like in my garden, something unexpected popped up and life looks different from the way you would have imagined. It can be so challenging to give up that semblance of control, accept the daily crosses our vocation brings, and trust that God has a plan that’s better than ours.

Learning from Mary

You know who’s a great example to learn from about surrender and acceptance in motherhood? Mary! The more I learn from her, the more I admire and love her. We often pray our family Rosary after dinner while one of us is washing dishes, and my view of the garden from the kitchen window has given me a lot of time to contemplate both cantaloupe and Mary (though to be frank, I never thought the two were related). I have been particularly inspired by how Mary lived out the surrender of motherhood in the fourth joyful mystery of the Rosary, the Presentation. In the Gospel, we read:

When the days were completed for their purification according to the law of Moses, they took him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord. (Luke 2:22)

 Here we see Mary as a brand-new mother who is presenting her infant Son to God. She lays him on the altar both physically and spiritually, even though she doesn’t know yet all that this surrender will entail. She gets a hint of sorrows to come in Simeon’s prophecy:

"And you yourself a sword will pierce so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.” (Luke 1: 35)

But despite this, Mary doesn’t take her choice back or try to make things go the way she would have wanted. She was at peace with what God’s will was for her and for her Child, and because of this openness God was able to do amazing things through her. We too will be asked to surrender aspects of the ‘garden’ we are tending: our hopes, fears, and desires for our family and the many daily difficulties of our vocation. We won’t necessarily know how things will turn out, and that brings us out of our comfort zone into greater trust and intimacy with God.

Imagine the tenderness and care with which a father receives his newborn child into his arms for the first time. He knows what a great treasure he is holding, and he is completely captivated by the little one. How much more carefully does God cradle our loved ones and receive our feeble attempts of surrender in His almighty, Fatherly hands!

Mary assures us that she is there with us too, encouraging us that it will be okay: We just need to trust. We can ask her for help as we practice surrendering and trusting in God, and we can gain strength from her example. You can be sure she will show up ready to work with gardening tools in hand, whether you have cilantro or cantaloupe to harvest.

Share your thoughts with the Catholic Mom community! You'll find the comment box below the author's bio and list of recommended articles.

Copyright 2026 Lea McCarthy
Images: Canva