Cucumbers, Tree Grafts and Answers to Prayers

This morning, among other things, I prayed "Father, I'm stuck in Jacob 5--that really long chapter about all the trees that get grafted. Could you please help me make my way through it and if possible, help me understand it, or at least find something that is relevant to my life."

Things started popping up at me as I read.

"Hey, these grafted trees are kind of like me and Tom and our blended family. He was a little wild and I was walk-over-me tame, but together we've raised some great kids."

I noticed the two pages before (the ones I read last week, where I got stalled) that the Master of the Vineyard took the tame branches and scattered them wherever it pleased him. The Servant didn't necessarily know where they were. Today I read that the Master was showing the Servant some of the places and the results. The Servant was saying, "Why did you graft these over here is such lousy-poor soil?" In my mind the Master kind of chuckles as he says, "Keep your advice. Why do you think I told you I had been working so hard? But look at this incredible fruit." That made me cry, because sometimes I feel like bad fruit in poor soil--but God keeps on digging and pruning and adding fertilizer because he has faith that I'll grow into something good. Others might give up on me, but not God.

Amazingly, as I went to work in my own garden, the words I had read stayed with me. Many days they sort of wander in and out of my head, but I kept remembering how the Master weeded and pruned and digged and dunged as I wielded my own shovel and hoe.

But that's not all. At lunch time, Franklin was trying to figure out if a cucumber wasn't really a fruit rather than a vegetable. We got out the dictionary which didn't say much except that edible plants are vegetable, i.e., "the vegetable world." So I dug out a couple of old gardening books that have been sitting on the shelves for many years. I didn't find any great definitions of fruits and vegetables (melons were listed on the vegetable side of things); but I did open up to a page that shows how dwarf fruit trees are grafted. The article explained how the strengths of various parts of the tree could be combined to get the desired fruit.

Is that an incredible answer to prayer, or what?