A Simple Miracle Called Faith

By Peter Bowden

They didn’t have much left, not really. The crops had dried, and the well wasn’t more than a memory with cracked stones and a faint smell of rust. The boy watched his father bow over the ground like a man praying to something buried beneath it. Not asking for rain, not anymore. Just digging a little trench around the roots of the tomato plant, whispering something the boy couldn't hear.

At night, the boy listened as his mother lit the oil lamp and read from a cracked old Bible, the binding held with twine. She didn’t speak loudly or with urgency. Just slow and calm, as if every word was a seed that might bloom if you gave it enough light. The boy didn’t understand all the words, but he felt them settle into the soft places of his chest. And every evening, he poured the last cup of water from the clay jug onto the plant, the one with the pale green stem and the tiny yellow bloom.

Then one morning, the world changed. Not with thunder or fire, but with three small red tomatoes hanging from that scraggly vine. The boy laughed first, then his mother. His father only nodded, wiped his hands on his pants, and said, “It’s enough.” They didn’t speak of it much after that. But they never stopped planting, never stopped reading, and never forgot the way a little faith could grow red fruit from dry ground.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Beautiful
July 31, 2025 at 5:31 AM

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