the sticky stuff of life

When it comes to my kitchen life, there’s a list.  I’ve never written it down.  I’ve never spoken about it or told anyone – but, none-the-less – there’s this list, in my head.  It is a bucket list of sorts; things I hope to learn to do in the kitchen.  Like, how to bake fresh bread or how to make a scratch pie crust – those are things I’ve checked off my list recently.  The more I cross off, the more I add.

Today, I conquered one of the items.  homemade strawberry jam.

I’ve been gathering the supplies and perusing recipes all spring.  I had the fruit a while back, but ended up using the berries for something else.  But, Monday morning, my mother-in-law, arrived on my doorstep with a half-flat of strawberries from Tidwell’s. (she knew of my hopes for jam) And so, I plotted and planned for just the right moment to convert those delicious little fresh morsels into gooey, sweet, spreadable, but not -too- runny jam.  lovely.

I did it this afternoon.

As I looked at the recipe, I knew I was, at best, going to get a little messy- but there was a good possibility that I may get really sticky.  There was the mashing of all the cleaned and hulled berries, then measuring and scooping them into the pot – boiling them with a lot of sugar and pectin, then ladling all of the red, beautiful glossy goodness into the small jars.

Well, it was messy.  and it was very, very, very sticky.  I didn’t realize exactly how all of the timing would work, until I got into it.  Eventually all of it made it into the jars.  But, in the middle of the jam making process, as I crushed the produce and stirred the boiling liquid, I had a few moments of clarity :this process of making jam, was a lot like my life…

All of the mashing and pressing and boiling, hoping for something sweet to turn out in the end.  Often, I look at how things are going – the pressure, the heat, the work that God is doing from the inside out – and for the life of me, I can’t imagine how I’m going to end up anything but a hot mess.

How many times have I tried to hop out of the pot and get cleaned up, so that I could proceed with my own purposes?   Learning how to be patient, how to love,  how to be more like Him…  I would never choose the pain and suffering that goes along with these. not on my own…

But, He promises.  All of this boiling in a pot of trials and hardships, all of this beating to a pulp, down into nothing but mash is for my good…  That is when His heart comes through and I find His sweetness to be so strong.  There may be times that are sticky.  There may be times that  life comes to a rolling boil.  But in the end, it is all a part of the plan for my heart to turn out just right, for my good and for His glory.  The truth of this reality is quite amazing!

These are good words from Job 23 for me to remember.  After all, Job’s situation was much worse than mine…