When life gives you lemons...

There are several ways to finish this saying. Two of the most popular are:

Make lemonade.

Squirt them in someone's eye.

Last week I was handed lemons. I got an email. Unexpected. No subject. And the sender has not been kind to me in the past. Actions as well as words. Publically and privately. I looked at the email with trepidation, wondering whether to read it or delete it without reading it. (I love my delete button). I felt like I should at least read the beginning and get a feel for it.

It was kind and complimentary. And this almost ticked me off. Because after all the ugliness that I had received from this individual I was now hearing kind things, compliments about myself. I LOVE COMPLIMENTS. I'll say that again, I REALLY, REALLY LOVE COMPLIMENTS.

Steve and I were sitting at the sports bar Saturday night watching the KU basketball game, and I was drinking a long island iced tea and pulled the lemon out of the drink and ate it with the flavor of the drink soaked in, I realized I like lemons.

Mostly in my drinks, because regular iced tea with lemon is my favorite summertime drink. Actually trumps diet coke in the summer. Doesn't it look delicious in this picture? I'm going to go have some right now.

I also realized that the majority of my life when I've been handed lemons it's been the biggest growth opportunity. I don't believe that everything that happens to me happens the way God wants it to, because he never wants us to sin. But I do believe that if we let him, he will use the consequences of our sins to grow us, to teach us, to help us become more like him. We can't be perfect, but we can strive to be more like Jesus everyday.

So life has to hand me some lemons to get me there. I don't get to choose the lemons either. I was talking to a friend via email this week that I trust God, and I do believe he knows better and I rarely get what I want. But I still want what I want. Sometimes I want to go back in time and make events never have happened.

Some people say everything happens for a reason, what doesn't kill us makes us stronger, God doesn't give you more than you can handle. To all this, I simply say "pfhttttttt!" Sometimes bad things happen because that's just the world we live in. How's that for a reason? What doesn't kill me may leave me curled in the fetal position with my hands over my ears. Does that sound stronger? And God gives us more than we can handle. ALL THE TIME! Otherwise, we wouldn't turn to him for help, we'd just say, "Thanks God, but I got this one on my own."

So I'm looking at life's lemons a little differently. I'm not always going to like everything that happens. But I do love Jesus. I trust his heart is good.

After all, he created the lemon.