I've been busy nurturing after the storms...

There were a few storms-- some tornadic-- with very high winds, and it beat up some of my less-established container plants pretty worse than I previously assumed. I've been playing catch-up, and I've spent hours outside in the humidity nursing them back to health or meticulously pruning them to get them back to some facsimile of good health. Some of my plants were turning yellow two days after their leaves and branches were tattered and mangled (one of my tomato plants was knotted around itself!)
I have come to think of these living things as partly my babies and partly extensions of myself. I couldn't just let them fight on their own when they did nothing to cause this. It wasn't bugs, fertilizer overdose, or even fungus that attacked them. It was a storm system--TWO storm systems-- that caused them to basically go into shock. 
The tops of them were strong and pretty and green. The root systems were strong. There were still pretty blossoms on the plants... but that was a facade. The plants from the road looked alive and well, even producing some fruit. But they were dying because they couldn't weather the storm alone. 
Two were blown over, and my husband and I went out in the fierce rain and lightning to rescue them. We got drenched picking these heavy plants up and putting them in a safer spot (not completely safe) on the porch.
And that made me think. There are storms in life. We can be rooted, grounded, producing fruit... and somehow the storms can still come out of nowhere and blindside us. Put us in shock. Make us give up because after all the preparation and planning, we still got beat up.  
We may have friends who will go through hell and high water to help us, but in the end, it's us who have to pick up and somehow survive. And we need nurturing. We need pruning. We need that someone who will risk a lightning strike to help us.
And He did. He is there. Sometimes when things are at there best, we can forget that He's still there giving us water, regular fertilizer, regular pruning.  It's not until the storms come that we remember to ask for His help.

Let's not forget to thank Him for the good times also, not just for rescue in bad times.