“If life is a bowl full of cherries, then why am I in the pits?” I’m sure you’ve all heard that statement before! Well, for me, today has been a day loaded with cherries!
It started in the cherry orchard at 7:30 am. My dear husband went with me to pick them, and what a beautiful sight! It was worth it just to stand on the side of that hill and gaze across the valley at the gorgeous mountain range beyond. The place didn’t open until 8:00, and I’d say there were at least 50 people ahead of us and another 50 behind us by the time they opened the starting gate; then off we went as though there could never be enough cherries for all of us!
However, I must say that the early bird gets the worm and the early cherry picker gets the biggest cherries! If you have never picked cherries, you’ve really missed something! There they hang, in glorious red clusters just begging to be picked! It’s a beautiful sight!
So, after about an hour, we had our 35 pounds of cherries (and at $2.25 a pound – well, you do the math! I’m broke!) Then we stopped to visit our son and daughter-by-choice (doesn’t that sound so much better than daughter-in-law? She truly is a daughter to us and if our son hadn’t picked her, we would have!) AND two of our grandsons. Anyway, what a wonderful visit we had – she even fed us our second breakfast of the day AND I got to feed our youngest grandson a bottle. Does life get any better than this?
My next stop was our daughter’s home, where I watched our middle grandson. After quite a show of smiles and faces while Mommy fed him cereal, he headed to the swing and fell asleep to the lovely, “chink-a-chink” sound of the cherries making their way through the cherry pitter, while Mommy had a photo shoot (She’s awsome! Check her out!! Jennifer Mark’s Photography) My daughter has a 1903 cherry pitter that looks a lot like the one in the photo, and let me tell you – it works like a charm! There’s something about using an antique like that that makes you feel homey and close to your roots.
Seven years ago, the Lord moved us back to my home town. After twenty-six years of living in NJ, PA, SC, and VA, I never would have thought that I’d be back in this area. Coming “home” has been such a blessing; and now two of our three children are also here ministering with us in our church! Does it get any better than that?
I’m not sure if there’s any great spiritual lesson in this blog, except this:
“Oh that men would praise the LORD for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men!” Psalm 107:8
At times, like today (my birthday, by the way!), life is a bowl full of cherries. Those are the times that we need to “tank up” on our blessings side of life’s score sheet; so that when the pits come – and they will – we have an arsenal of reasons to tell Old Scratch to beat a path home. (That’s the polite way of telling him to go you know where!) It’s so easy to see only puddles after and during the thunderstorm – but do remember that often God puts a rainbow in our storms too. Learn to tuck away the memories of “cherry days,” so that when the “pit days” come, we can say with Job: “
“…the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.
Job 1:20
Beyond Common Sense 