Lemon Drops

I discovered a new band this weekend.  If you are offended by cussing, references to alcohol, smoking or sugar daddies, this is not the music for you.  However, I think Pistol Annies is a fun band and there are some great lyrics on the album.

So what does that have to do with Lemon drops you might be wondering?  Well...one of their songs is titled "Lemon Drop" and I love the refrain, My life is like a lemon drop. I'm sucking on the bitter to get to the sweet part.  I know there are better days ahead. 

There was a time when lemon drops were my very best friend.  They were, you see, the only thing that kept the morning all day sickness at bay when I was pregnant with *E* in 2004.  I kept an ample supply in front of me as I sat through classes trying not to make a mad dash for the closest restroom.  (I found out we were expecting 1 week after I began seminary, God has an amazing sense of humor...and timing.)

Those lemon drops were a bitter and sweet that helped me get through the rough parts and now *E* is a 7 year old.  I sucked on the bitter to get to the sweet parts..and we still have bitter and sweet parts.

And life is like that.  We have bitter and sweet and sometimes it feels like the bitter lasts longer than the sweet.  Sometimes it looks like someone else got a sweeter lemon drop.  Sometimes we might even feel like our lemon drop was sweeter that we deserved. 

Sometimes our bitter is just too much to bear; the pain too deep and raw.  Sometimes we cannot imagine there ever being a sweet part, cannot fathom the end of the bitterness. 

I confess to you right now, that I could find all sorts of little things to get all bitter about and that bitterness could grow; whether from worry or envy, frustration or hurt. The thing is, I would have to nurture that bitterness for it to grow.  I would have to give energy, time and focus to the envy or worry, frustration or hurt in order for them to grow and then it would be like sucking on the never-ending-bitter lemon drop. 

What I have to relearn over and over again (because I am a cup half-empty girl) is that we have to have faith and hope in the sweet part.  It will come.  It is going to come.  But if we're too busy focusing on the bitterness...we might not be open to experiencing the sweet. 

Sometimes I feel like living in the expectation of sweet parts is naive.  My half-empty cup mocks my hope.  My reality-driven mind makes me question whether there will ever be sweet parts again or if we got the defective lemon drops without sweet parts. 

But then into my mind pops my "go to" verse, Jer 29:11 "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."  I take the plans to prosper, to give hope and a future as the sweet parts.  I hold on to those words of God, He who has a plan for me,  even when others think my faith is blissful ignorance, because that faith allows me to live in expectation of sweet parts. 

Thank you Pistol Annies  for reminding me of my love for lemon drops, how they got me through some rough months and that there are some very sweet parts, too.  They got me to thinking about the bitter and the sweet in every day, how we can nurture the bitter or expect the sweet and either way we'll get what we nurture and expect.  Either way, we'll taste what we expect to taste. 

My life is like a lemon drop. I'm sucking on the bitter to get to the sweet part. I know there are better days ahead.

-Peace