“They will still bear fruit in old age, they will stay fresh and green.” (Psalm 92:14 NIV)
Late last spring, like a lot of other people during the pandemic, I experimented with container gardening. Conditions were far from ideal when I took the last, wrinkled grape tomato from the basket and just stuck it in a small pot of soil. In fact, nothing happened.
Weeks went by before a single sickly sprout emerged. Though I watered my plant, repotted it when it grew, and staked it when it became a scrawny, gangly vine, it didn’t bloom.
Finally, as days shortened in August, my tomato plant finally blossomed. But it was too late—frost was in the forecast. I cleared off my balcony garden, moving ferns and geraniums to a cool, sunny bedroom and discarding spent annuals. In other years, a tired tomato plant would have ended up on the compost heap along with the other refuse.
But as I lifted the pot, those brave little yellow blossoms caught my eye. “Okay. Since you want to bloom, you can come to the bedroom awhile too.” I set the plant by a window, tying up the vines in graceful swoops around the frame.
Of course, the blossoms dropped after a few days. But new buds also appeared. “I think she’s happy,” I told people. “Naturally, I don’t expect tomatoes, but I’ll let her bloom awhile.”
One day, there it was. My first teeny-tiny green tomato. Like an expectant parent with an ultrasound, I proudly posted its picture on Facebook and Instagram. “Of course, it’ll never ripen,” I said, “but I’m glad I didn’t just throw the plant on the compost. It’s kind of pretty, and it wants to live.”
But to my amazement, the baby tomato grew. And even though the plant still looked like a scraggly weed, it produced two more tomatoes. What’s more, as fall turned to winter and winter marched toward spring, my little tomatoes began ripening. When I set out my balcony garden on the first warm spring days, the miracle tomato plant had three red tomatoes and several green ones. By late June, we’d already had a mini harvest. One red tomato remained, and the plant decided to blossom again. We’re now in uncharted territory.
Whyever had I decided to hang onto a doomed, weedy plant of no apparent value? It suddenly struck me that she and I were alike.
Though I’d always dreamed of writing novels, I’d only published three children’s mysteries back in the 90s. Decades had passed since then, and I feared my dream was long done. Though I wanted to publish more books and share with more readers, I cared less about that than the awful fear God had put more in me than I would ever do for him. “Don’t let me die without fulfilling your vision for me,” I used to pray, even though my prayer was increasingly full of doubt as the dry years went by.
Then, to my amazement (and the shock of everyone around me), God answered my feeble prayers, and my first book in twenty-five years recently released from Mountain Brook Ink. Mabel Gets the Ax is a cozy mystery for adults, and I pray it will leave readers uplifted and smiling.
Wherever we are in life, God is not done with us. Thankfully, it isn’t up to our efforts! “Neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow.” Praise God! (1 Corinthians 3:7 NIV)
Susan Kimmel Wright is a child of the Appalachian Mountains. A former lawyer, Susan has published three children’s mystery novels and is a prolific contributor to Chicken Soup for the Soul books. Mabel Gets the Ax, Book One in Mysteries of Medicine Spring, her first cozy mystery series for adult readers, is now available from Mountain Brook Ink. Susan can generally be found nose deep in a book, out in the woods with her dogs, or online at links below. Please stop by.
Mabel plans to bring the thrills of volunteering to the masses—if she doesn’t get the ax first.
After losing her job of twenty-three years, Mabel decides to launch what will surely be a glamorous new career as an author. Having recently inherited her late grandmother’s house, she has the freedom to spend time volunteering and writing about her experiences.
Unfortunately, Mabel’s plans soon go off the rails. Her inheritance comes with decades of clutter, an overgrown lot, a dog named Barnacle, and a neighbor with an ax to grind. And her first assignment as a Medicine Spring Historical Society volunteer is to lead a tour of the Sauer Mansion, locally known as the “Ax Murder House,” site of a notorious 1930’s double homicide.
As Mabel shepherds her tour group through the house, it appears history’s repeating itself when she stumbles across a body in the parlor. Finding herself on the suspect list, Mabel scrambles to figure out who swung the fatal ax. In the process, she can’t help being drawn into investigating the unsolved historic murders, teamed up with PI John Bigelow, a man she isn’t sure she can trust. With an ax murderer on the loose, will Mabel be next?
