Do you know that it is practically impossible to find plain old banana ice cream in the grocery store? You can find banana split ice cream and banana cream pie ice cream, but not plain banana. So overripe bananas were on sale a few weeks ago and Keith bought some to make ice cream. As we were in the middle of mashing bananas I added a splash of lemon juice and suddenly we were having a conversation about it. He was just sure I had ruined his banana ice cream and made it sour—why the whole thing would curdle now, didn’t I know that?
The past few weeks he has started watching me do things and asking questions for the inevitable day when he will need to take over. In the past, he has never known that I add a splash of lemon juice to a lot of things, his favorite apple pie, his favorite blueberry crisp, his favorite peach cobbler, his favorite crab cakes, and I could go on and on. Lemon juice is one of those things that brighten flavors and make things taste better, even though you don’t actually taste the lemon—similar to salt in baked goods. Any good cook knows that if you leave the salt out of the cookies or the cake or the pie crust or the biscuits, none of them will be fit to eat. You don’t know it is in there, but you sure know it if it isn’t.
I have a feeling we treat God’s blessings that way sometimes. We never really notice all the good things we have, but I bet if they suddenly disappeared we would. Oh yes, we often thank God for the really big things like salvation and grace, but what if you got up to a black and white world tomorrow morning? Have you ever really thought about the blessing of color? We thank God every day for the food on our tables, but what if suddenly you could no longer taste it? Let me tell you, I have had that problem with these eye medications and it is awful. About the only thing good about it was a ten pound weight loss in two weeks, but there comes a point when even that is not a blessing.
You see, God is responsible for everything good, even the seemingly small, unimportant things. When your life takes a turn for the worse, it is easy to forget that and blame God. But by remembering that there are still good things, like color and taste, like flowers and butterflies, like puppies and kittens, like rain on the roof and a breeze in the trees, like a real vine-ripened tomato, you can know that God is still there, he is still giving you blessings. They may be blessings like lemon juice in banana ice cream or salt in cookies: just because you don’t notice them, doesn’t mean He doesn’t care.
You visit the earth and water it, you greatly enrich it; the river of God is full of water. You provide their grain for so you have prepared it. You water its furrows abundantly, settling its ridges, softening it with showers and blessing its growth. You crown the year with your bounty, your wagon tracks overflow with abundance. The pastures of the wilderness overflow, the hills gird themselves with joy, the meadows clothe themselves with flocks, the valleys deck themselves with grain; they shout and sing together for joy, Psalm 65:9-13.
Dene Ward
The past few weeks he has started watching me do things and asking questions for the inevitable day when he will need to take over. In the past, he has never known that I add a splash of lemon juice to a lot of things, his favorite apple pie, his favorite blueberry crisp, his favorite peach cobbler, his favorite crab cakes, and I could go on and on. Lemon juice is one of those things that brighten flavors and make things taste better, even though you don’t actually taste the lemon—similar to salt in baked goods. Any good cook knows that if you leave the salt out of the cookies or the cake or the pie crust or the biscuits, none of them will be fit to eat. You don’t know it is in there, but you sure know it if it isn’t.
I have a feeling we treat God’s blessings that way sometimes. We never really notice all the good things we have, but I bet if they suddenly disappeared we would. Oh yes, we often thank God for the really big things like salvation and grace, but what if you got up to a black and white world tomorrow morning? Have you ever really thought about the blessing of color? We thank God every day for the food on our tables, but what if suddenly you could no longer taste it? Let me tell you, I have had that problem with these eye medications and it is awful. About the only thing good about it was a ten pound weight loss in two weeks, but there comes a point when even that is not a blessing.
You see, God is responsible for everything good, even the seemingly small, unimportant things. When your life takes a turn for the worse, it is easy to forget that and blame God. But by remembering that there are still good things, like color and taste, like flowers and butterflies, like puppies and kittens, like rain on the roof and a breeze in the trees, like a real vine-ripened tomato, you can know that God is still there, he is still giving you blessings. They may be blessings like lemon juice in banana ice cream or salt in cookies: just because you don’t notice them, doesn’t mean He doesn’t care.
You visit the earth and water it, you greatly enrich it; the river of God is full of water. You provide their grain for so you have prepared it. You water its furrows abundantly, settling its ridges, softening it with showers and blessing its growth. You crown the year with your bounty, your wagon tracks overflow with abundance. The pastures of the wilderness overflow, the hills gird themselves with joy, the meadows clothe themselves with flocks, the valleys deck themselves with grain; they shout and sing together for joy, Psalm 65:9-13.
Dene Ward
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