Short Story: Only Sunshine?

It’s raining again, Tommy the tomato plant complained to himself. Why does it always have to rain? I wish we could always have sunshine.

Being just a tomato plant, Tommy didn’t know that the rain is exactly what gave him the water he needed to grow strong and produce plump, melt-in-your-mouth tomatoes. All he thought of is how the wind blew him back and forth and how the rain pelted down on him. He didn’t like it at all.

A few weeks later, Tommy got his wish. There was a drought—a long time with no rain at all. At first, Tommy was very happy. No rain!

But then the soil began to dry up. No problem, Tommy thought. I’ll just dig deeper down into the soil with my roots.

But then that soil, too, became dry.

Tommy no longer had enough moisture to send to all his leaves. They began to wilt. A few began to shrivel up and die. Tommy realized he would soon wither up altogether if it didn’t rain.

He knew now how wrong he had been—he needed rain! The storms gave him something very important he couldn’t live without.

“Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” Romans 5:3-5 (ESV)