Have you ever had something not quite turn out as you had planned? This is my story of the canned grapes. Months back I read about how you can preserve grapes in a water bath canner. I found both green and red grapes on sale at Kroger’s, purchased a large quantity, and had a canning session. All turned out beautiful; the grapes looked lovely in the Ball Mason jars, but there is just one problem; we didn’t like the taste of them! So for months I have been looking at pretty grapes in jars taking up space in my pantry.
We’ve all heard the expression, “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.” I ended up applying this sentiment to my canned grapes, and my girls helped me turn all those soggy grapes into grape jam.
It wasn’t the easiest thing to mash all these grapes, but my girls and I took turns standing over the stove and mashing them down so that we could get the juice out of them. There are many tasks in life that are not necessarily fun, but we have to just put our hand to the plow and do the work if we want the desired fruit. Raising children is like that. There are many aspects of the daily grind that are not always fun, but if we want to see good fruit in our children, we must be committed to faithfulness in the tasks the Lord has called us to. Ultimately it is He that bears the good fruit in our childrens’ lives, but we have the privilege of being parents and stewarding these young people the Lord has blessed us with.
Canning is an opportunity to learn perseverance!
I love working with my girls and preparing them to be able to manage their own homes one day. This little mishap with the distasteful grapes just gave us another reason to spend time together in the kitchen. That is the silver lining in this story.
There are so many areas in life where we can take what seems like a failure or disappointment and turn it into something good. We serve a God Who is in the business of redeeming things for His own glory.
“And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose.” – Romans 8:28
This little story about turning canned grapes into jam is all to make us think about the bigger areas in our lives where we can trust the Lord to redeem our brokenness and bring beauty out of ashes. What are the broken and distasteful parts of your story? I know we’re all dealing with much bigger issues than distasteful canned grapes, but our Lord cares about the hurt places in our hearts, the disappointments, the struggles, and the disillusionments. He is a God of restoration and redemption and we can trust Him to carry us through and bring hope to our hopelessness.
“Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.” – Corrie Ten Boom
May the God of all eternal hope encourage your heart today. He is your Creator and Sustainer. He loves you, and He has a plan to work all things together for good to those who love God. Isn’t it comforting to know that His good plan is to work all things for our good and His glory. We may not always see how suffering is for our good, but one day we will see clearly the things that don’t make sense on this side of eternity. Let’s keep trusting and obeying and delight in His faithfulness.
Thanks for stopping by, and you can click on the resources tab to see other blogs where I am linking up this week.
