Berries are Proof that God Exists

Over the weekend, we bought our sixth “half flat” of fresh berries at the farmers market. You know the kind—overflowing pints of strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, marionberries, boysenberries, and blueberries, each one practically glowing in the morning sun like they’d been hand-polished by angels on berry duty.

As soon as I bit into the first one, I said it out loud without even thinking: “Berries are proof that God exists.”

It was a joke. Sort of.

But it also wasn’t.

Because in that moment, the juice burst across my tongue with more sweetness than I expected. I stood there chewing, half in disbelief, thinking, Had I forgotten they could taste this good?

Sometimes I forget how good the world can be. How good God is.

Between the headlines and the heartbreak, between the budget spreadsheets and the church calendar and the everyday list of things-that-need-doing, it’s easy to lose touch with wonder. It’s easy to feel like the world is mostly broken, and our job is just to hold the pieces together as best we can.

But then berry season arrives.

Not forever, not even for long. Just long enough to remind us that grace still shows up. That creation is still bearing fruit. That something can be soft, and small, and fleeting—and still be holy.

I don’t think it’s too much to say that berries are sacramental. Not capital-S Sacrament, but lowercase-s sacrament. A visible sign of invisible grace. A tangible reminder that God is not only Creator, but also Artist. Not only source of justice, but also source of joy.

There’s a passage in the psalms that says, “Taste and see that the Lord is good” (Psalm 34:8). I often quote that text in the context of the Lord’s Table.

Some days, I taste that goodness in bread and cup.

Some days, I taste it in the sweetness of a summer berry, eaten while standing in the parking lot of a farmers market, sticky-fingered and smiling.
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Either way, it’s grace.