When I was growing up, our family lived in the house between my uncle’s and my grandfather’s. We grew up playing indoors or outside as there was no driving here or there for fun and friends. Some of my favorite times were being in my grandma and grandpa’s yard where they had lots of trees for climbing, fruit trees, and bushes to hide in.
Some of the first fruits to be picked were gooseberries. Nana’s gooseberries looked a lot like ripe, green seedless grapes only with lines in them. Besides picking them off the stem, you had to pick off this brown thing on the end before you ate them. Gooseberries have a wonderful sour taste I enjoy, but if Nana caught me, she would yell at me to stop eating so many or she wouldn’t have any left to use!
The next highly anticipated fruit for me to enjoy was apricots from their trees. Every year I would hope for a great crop, and wait excitedly for the fruit to turn deep orange so that I could eat them. To this day I still remember picking warm apricots off the tree and eating them with delight, savoring the sour- sweetness as it flooded my mouth. They are still one of my favorite fruits.
Thinking of Nana’s fruit makes me ponder the tree of life we will have access to in the New Jerusalem. Whether or not it is the same tree as the one Adam and Eve knew (God can do anything), at the very least it is in the ‘same family’. In the Garden of Eden, humanity could eat freely of any fruit (Gen. 2:16) with only one tree being forbidden- tree of the knowledge of good and evil. So Adam and Eve could have eaten from the tree of life. I bet it was exciting for them to try all those new fruits from the many trees in the garden!
And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Gen. 2:9
And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever: Gen. 3:22
In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.
Rev. 22:2
So we see that man had to be barred from the garden to keep him from eating of the tree of life and living forever in sin. (really appreciate that Lord) We also see that one day there will be another tree of life in the midst of a street of our new home, and it will bare 12 fruits for us to eat, and the leaves will be used for healing. Yummy fruit, healing, a life of peace and joy, and best of all, being with our Love, our Savior, our King Eternal- face to face forever*. Hmmm… Much more exciting than when I was a child.
Nana’s fruit doesn’t seem quite so excellent anymore!
*Ps. ; 1Tm. ; Luke 15:7; Ps. 16:11