The Row By The Fence

“Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine by the sides of thine house: thy children like olive plants round about thy table.

Behold, that thus shall the man be blessed that feareth the LORD.”
Psalm 128:3-4


His mind wanders to the row by the fence
Past the gate. A breeze brushes to tense
Wispy tares, their waving tails as a whole
Surround the struggling sprout by the pole.

Lines greave the farmer's brow in concerned gaze.
Though he stands in reality in the place--
Lectern, table, plates, with Bible between--
Midst chalices of the worship scene.

He picks up the plate, his mind at the gate
Blurred eyes relate the scene in state:
"Anon was it watered? Were not sunbeams
Bent to its bed? Nights kissed with moongleam?

Was it in planting, the basic natal mean,
That the sprout sank in condemning chagrin?
Other seedlings sprang, raced toward the skies
Stock set in nurture, pearls of great price.

Cradled in wrinkled hand, weren't all the same
As the leafless; lifeless by the frame?"
He takes up the collection down each row
But his heavy heart wanders, lost in woe.

Money stacks as the plattered circuit laps
Among green reaping,  earned fruit protracts.
Where God plants, a flourish, a bloom ensues
So men would think, so they would suppose.

Does not the blest Psalmist state
Near chapter one hundred twenty-eight:
A family sits around a table
More fruit produced than barns are able!

Joyful harvest, olive in full blossom
Blessing mother and father, awesome
Their effect. Howbeit one empty chair
Decries stunted growth in garden share.

God's mighty hand was not shortened to seed;
Providentially brought blessing to need.
Same grace to each, yet differently partake
Of care and loving, the difference makes.

Again David's line belays the affection
For no greater home in no greater nation
Experienced grief and loss, Solomon raised
With Absalom-- him slain, his brother praised.

Yet gracious God rains on just and unjust
Each able to excel as it must.
Reason! As thoughts take him back to the row,
Why, 'tis as though He made it not to grow?

True, God reigns in earthly matters of men;
Has His way over land and nation,
Long as I live, I shall wonder to know
Near the long-shadowed fence it be not so...

Why did He make some not to grow?

“And he shall be as the light of the morning, when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds; as the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain.

Although my house be not so with God; yet he hath made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure: for this is all my salvation, and all my desire, although he make it not to grow.”
2 Samuel 23:4-5