Lemons, Anyone?!

"If life gives you lemons, make lemonade." 

"That car is nothing but a lemon."

"She's as sour as a lemon."

These sayings or thoughts are things we have all heard our whole lives. But the other day, I was preparing my new favorite water concoction (I'll tell you about that later), and got to really looking at the lemons floating in the water. How pretty a slice of lemon is, and the perfection God puts into each little fruit.  How, if used properly, and with distinct purpose, they can be quite a treasure in the kitchen. But, lemons can be such a sour, unpleasant little fruits. So, as my mind usually does, it wandered to another thought. Our lives, and our tongues more so, are just like that lemon! I have heard a thought by someone guiding me spiritually that if you squeeze, or apply pressure to a lemon, you get lemon juice. So what do you get when you apply pressure to a Christian? Well, hopefully you get a Christ-like reaction. But unfortunately, more times than not for me, I emit something not very Christ-like at all: anger, frustration, stress, doubt, worry. I hate to say it, but it's true. And what truly concerns me, is that my children learn how to react by how I react, right? What a scary thought. There is no measure to the regret for the way I have handled myself in the past. But I am human and fall short daily. So what is truly important is that I teach these sweet little souls repentance. I tell them when I over-react, "I disappointed God with how I just acted. I'm really sorry you saw that." Honesty and humility is what our kids need today more than ever. I pray they remember that, and not how I flew off the handle to spilled milk...no pun intended there! 

Okay, so my point today is this: we, as Christians, can be really a sour thing in someone's life, or we can be a sweet, refreshing, healthy part of the life of others. I pray that I will use my life, my words, my example to be the sweet lemon to those around me. 

And so, as I promised, my refreshing, "detox" water is just this:

1 orange sliced

1 lemon sliced

1 gallon of water

Place the lemon and orange in a gallon-sized pitcher, and pour water over the fruit to fill the pitcher. After your first pitcher is done, refill water. You can do this a couple of times, but know that the more you do it, the stronger the citrus taste. So when that happens, I like to pour just a little in a glass and then add tap water to fill my glass. This citrus water, if you will, really, REALLY helps to keep your water retention down...so makes for really nice weigh-ins!!