The Great Cherry Adventure

 I am a sporadic volunteer at the soup kitchen (Potters Hands). Sometimes I go everytime they are open and sometimes I go once a week, but they don’t mind, they are just happy to see me.
I was working in the kitchen one day and the food bank dropped off boxes and boxes of cherries. At the time, I was managing a hotel that we are turning into low-income housing. I always had people over from the hotel (I lived in the same building). I was told to take as many cherries home as I could. I was carried away and ended up with a big bag of cherries. I realised something. I don’t necessarily like cherries.
How am I ever going to use up all these cherries? I believe it would be a literal sin to throw them away. Well if life gives you lemons make lemonade. If life gives you cherries, learn to make cherry pie. So I did. I got out the ‘ol “how to cook everything” cookbook. A must if you live off donations and don’t know one day from the next what will be in the fridge.

I did not have the right tool for taking out the pits of all those cherries. I was up to my wrists in cherry juice and pulp. I think I even developed a mild case of carpal tunnel syndrome.
I learned all about how to make the dough. I didn’t have a rolling pin so I finally found a use for that big can of stewed tomatoes. Simmered the cherries in a big pot. Learned that cinnamon is a perfect spice for cherry pie. (Sour cherries not sweet ones). I realised how much process there is in making pie from scratch. I realised how hard it is to get the cherry juice stain out of anything including my fingers. I looked like I killed Barney, the big purple dinosaur, for a while. I realised I am a good baker. All the guys thought it was awesome pie.

But more than that I realised the Great Cherry Pie Adventure was a lot like life in the Kingdom. We don’t know what is going to happen next. God gives us something a little challenging. We can throw it away, ignore it, and let it rot, or use it a chance to learn something and be able to make something out of an unusual situation. This puts a little perspective on life. How many times do we focus on the negative, when all it takes is to see what we can do when God puts something in our hands?