Nothing Is Wasted

Nothing Is Wasted

My dear brothers and sisters, be strong and immovable. Always work enthusiastically for the Lord, for you know that nothing you do for the Lord is ever useless. 1 Corinthians 15:58

Some time ago my friend Katherine told me about her new gardening method called “lasagna gardening.” This bed gets its name because preparing it is similar to how we prepare lasagna: We alternate a layer of long lasagna noodles, then a layer of meat, then cheeses, seasonings, then Italian sauce, and then the layers are repeated. In the same way, Katherine layers the garden refuse in the bed. She used to fill several dumpsters with blackberry clippings; dried up runners from cucumber, bean, and squash plants; and dead stalks from pepper plants. Now instead of pulling out and throwing away all the lifeless stems and leaves from the raised beds of her vegetable garden, she lays them down and begins to layer organic material on top of the bed.

She keeps a gallon ice-cream carton with a lid under the kitchen sink to collect potato peels, eggshells, coffee grounds, apple cores, etc. Every other day she dumps the contents of the carton on the garden bed. Layer after layer, week after week, all through the fall and winter, the lasagna garden bed grows rich in nutrients. Scores of earthworms do their part to aerate, dig, and enrich the soil. In the spring when it’s time for Katherine to plant her new vegetables, all the nutrients are already in the bed, and she doesn’t have to add chemical fertilizers. Nothing is wasted! Nothing is useless, even those things that look dry and dead. The soil produced by layering organic material is rich; as during the next season Katherine plants and waters, that soil produces the best vegetable gardens she’s ever had.

Whenever Katherine or her kids take another carton and dump it on the lasagna garden bed, she is reminded that in the Lord’s economy also, nothing in our lives is wasted. God takes things that look like throwaway material to us and makes something fruitful out of them when we give them to him. —CHERI

Thank you, Father, for tending my soul, feeding my mind, and bringing to life dreams that have died. With you, nothing is wasted, for you make something wonderful out of what looks lifeless or ugly.

God’s fingers can touch nothing but to mold it into loveliness.

—GEORGE MACDONALD (1824–1905), SCOTTISH NOVELIST AND POET