When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.
How many times have we all heard this proverb in our lives? The better question should probably be—how many times have we heard this and wanted to strangle the person saying it to us? Seriously.
Whenever this phrase comes into play it usually means bad things are happening, or have happened, to us. Life has knocked us for a loop and we need to focus on taking the bad and turning it into good.
This phrase will be my Lent 2015 goal. I will try to make lemonade from the lemons that pop into my life for forty days and forty nights.
I will work to build an awesome lemonade stand.
I will work to become an awesome lemonade salesman.
Just like Jesus.
What?
Yeah, I said “Jesus”.
I am going to try and emulate the greatest lemonade maker in the history of the world: Jesus Christ.
You think I’ve flipped? You want to scream “blasphemy” in my general direction?
Okay, I understand your skepticism, but hear me out. No, Jesus did not set up a lemonade stand built with his mad carpentry skills on the edge of the family footpath and hawk his creation for 5 cents a glass for weary and thirsty Nazareans.
Nor did Jesus write a best-selling scroll titled, 101 Recipes for Lemonade (That cool, refreshing drink).
But, Jesus did spend his entire Gospel-documented life, turning the bad things into good things.
See what I mean?
When life gave Jesus lemons, he made lemonade.
His birth in Bethlehem with choirs of angels, visiting shepherds and three traveling kings. It all started with no room at the inn, remember?
The Beatitudes are all about the promise of lemonade.
The loaves and fishes.
The wedding at Cana.
He even turned death into life through his resurrection.
Jesus was given a lot of lemons.
Jesus was the master craftsman lemonade maker.
He started the Church.
He gave us hope.
At least for these forty days of Lent, I can do this. I can make a start and follow Christ’s example. I can accept the lemons in life and try to make positives from them.
Bring on the Lenten lemonade!
Copyright 2015, Mike Hays
Mike Hays
Mike Hays is a husband, a father of three, a lifelong Kansan and works as a molecular microbiologist. Besides writing, he has been a high school strength and conditioning coach, a football coach and a baseball coach. His debut middle grade historical fiction novel, THE YOUNGER DAYS, is a 2012 recipient of The Catholic Writer's Guild Seal of Approval Award. You can find it at the publisher's website or on Amazon.
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