God's Sweetness

I have a long list of things I want to blog about, and I hope to get to them over the next week or so. But, this morning I just have a couple of minutes and most of my thoughts need to be sorted and organized so they make sense. That's just how I process the things God is showing me, so whether I blog them or not, that's what I do with them! It's just a matter of having the opportunity...

Anyway, this morning, though, there is a simple thought that comes to my mind as I munch an apple and feel the cool, fresh air wafting in through the window. That thought is this...if it's straight from God, it's always better! Let me explain...

I love sweets and I don't like being hot! Those two things may seem unrelated, but give me a second and I'll connect the dots. Sweets are a struggle for me, especially chocolate or anything in the caramel or cinnamon variety. I love them! But over the last few weeks, I've kind of grown tired of them. I started trying to figure out why, and then it dawned on me...there were no apples in the mix. A couple of years ago we discovered Fuji apples. They are the sweetest apples I've ever tasted! They are crisp, juicy, and absolutely delicious! We've bought them in bulk, willing to pay the extra money to get a good, almost addictive piece of fruit instead of the mealy Red Delicious we used to buy - and waste because we were forcing ourselves to eat them. Anyway, last month there were no Fuji apples to be found in the stores we visited. They can be stored for about 11 months, so we were just past the end of the storage life for last year's crop, and about a month away from the new crop. "Oh well," we thought. "We'll be fine until the new crop starts rolling in." By the end of that month, though, we were desperate for our Fujis! My sweet tooth just could not be satisfied. When we finally bought some, we could hardly wait to get home and get one washed so we could cut into it. And, my oh my, did it hit the spot! God's sweetness is always better.

As for not liking to be hot, well, we all know it's a bit expensive to keep a house truly cool enough for a hot-natured person to be cool. Comfortable, maybe, but not truly cool. I think that's why I love fall so much - I begin to feel cool again in my own home. It is very real to me today. Monday night there were storm systems gathering around us. Although we barely even had rain, the pressure, humidity, and stillness from the storms around us made the air anything but refreshing. We'd had the windows open for days, but Monday night we had to close them and turn on the air conditioning. It immediately felt stale in the house again. All day yesterday the windows stayed closed, but this morning I felt the cool air as I was telling Doug goodbye, and I knew that it was time to open this house up again. The fresh, cool air feels and smells so wonderful! God's coolness is so much better!

If God can make better sweets and better air conditioning than man could even begin to conceive of putting together, then maybe - just maybe - He's better at other things, too. Maybe He's better at providing, parenting, teaching, protecting, guiding, decision-making, and anything else we can fathom. Maybe I should just let Him handle what He's good at while I handle what I'm good at. In which case, I think maybe I should be getting good at letting Him handle everything!