Lemonade, anyone?

As I write this it is almost Christmas.  I'd really prefer to writing about fun ways to celebrate the Christmas season with your family.

But right now I am more about survival than celebration.

We got thrown some lemons in November . . .maybe you've heard the saying "When life hands you lemons, make lemonande'?

I was really disappointed by the lemons.  I had my own personal ideas about how things were supposed to go and they did not include lemons.

I have friends who are dealing with their own lemons:  one friend is recovering from a massively invasive surgery;  another has to find housing NOW in a town that doesn't really seem to have any place for her to live.  A third friend is very ill during her pregnancy and dealing with extended family that make things worse, not better.

The longer I live, the more I realize that we all have to learn to deal with lemons.

For a while I dealt with my lemons by stuffing them into a cupboard.  Lemon bothering me?  Pick it up, chuck it in the cupboard.  Then one day all the lemons fell out of the cupboard and some of them were pretty gross from their time in the cupboard and not much fun to clean up.

So now I am trying hard not to stuff lemons in the cupboard, but since it was such a habit for such a long time, I still put lemons in the cupboard sometimes . . .

But this is what I am trying to do with my lemons:

1.  Bring them to God.  I try to read my Bible and pray every morning.  For awhile I was really good at this.  Then I got whacked in the head really hard by some lemons and decided that my Bible reading and prayer was not working so I stopped doing it.  But I read this book by Phillip Yancy on prayer and I found out that I'm not the only person who has prayed and not gotten any warm fuzzy feelings from God.  He spoke about quite a few people who prayed for years before they got the warm fuzzies.  One lady prayed for 20 years, faithfully before God really showed Himself to her.  Now I don't understand that, but I am going to keep reading my Bible and praying anyway because I believe it is the right thing to do.

2.  Talk to my husband about my fears.  I did this yesterday morning.  It helped.  I was not dramatic and I find that talking about things in a vague matter is unhelpful.  I try to be very specific about what is bothering me and I try to bring it up when he is somewhat relaxed and receptive to talking about "stuff".  Many times I find that I am imaging the very worst case scenarios and he is able to bring things into a better light and then I'm able to be a much nicer mom and wife because I can give the people I love my full attention instead of only part of my attention because the other part is mulling over the trainwreck that I am afraid our lives will become . . .because I am imaging the worst case scenario.

3.  I am trying to take care of myself physically.  I need to be more intentional in this area but I'm making baby steps.  Hubby and I found a really great nutritional supplement and I notice a big difference on the days when I use it and on the days when I don't.

4.  After I do those three things I feel like I should just do what I'm supposed to do that day.  So I dive into my work for the day and I give it my best . . .today part of that to-do-list is concentrating on Christmas and how to celebrate it!

And that, my friends, is my recipe for making lemonade out of lemons.

~ Be well,

Jennifer