Here in Australia we are approaching the middle of our summer. It has been an unusual beginning to the season with cooler temperatures, unseasonal rain and in some areas floods.

Finally this week we are experiencing the warmer weather, that we would normally enjoy at this time of year. I am now out kayaking and swimming and relishing early morning walks before the heat of the day sets in.

This is my favourite time of year when I feel most alive – my heart sings with the warm days and delights at the new growth and bounty in the garden, orchard, and vegetable beds. Some of our new, barely 15 month old, fruit trees are producing their first crops of apricots, nectarines, yellow cling peaches, pink lady apples, apricots and olives. I have been busy in the kitchen producing jams – plum and peach and zucchini pickle – a harvest that will bring delight in the cooler months with their colours, smells and tastes of summer.

Growth in the garden starts from tender shoots, carefully cared for, before and during summer, with water, protection from frosts and predators, experimentation, lessons learnt, warmth, patience and love. Yet growth is tempered by the knowledge that not all seedlings, cuttings or plants will grow, survive or be harvested.

Summer explorations in the bush, kayaking and swimming in rivers, time tending my garden and making preserves provides me with the reminder of the knowledge that I too have tender shoots within that may or may not flourish or come to harvest, no matter how attentive and caring I am. Yet the season of summer and the shoots within me carry life, delight and hope, sustaining me through the cooler seasons of my life with the trust and knowledge that like the created world I too am held in the hands of God and that harvests will come in their due time.