Getting the Good Stuff!

Today I went to a farm in Kansas to get blackberries for my annual jam-making binge! I have always enjoyed making jam even though it’s not the easiest thing in the world to do. It’s really the end product that I get excited about as well as thinking of the people I want to give it away to at Christmas. 

There’s something I love about taking that big mountain of fruit and distilling it down to the “good stuff”!

The fresh fruit itself is good stuff! But if it would spoil in a few days if it wasn’t crushed, mixed with pectin and sugar, and vacuum sealed into a jar to preserve it. 

Here is a verse from John 15 I think of related to this:

…I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father I my name, he may give it to you… John 15:16 ESV

There’s only one way that fruit can abide or remain, as another translation says. It has to change form. It has to go through a process of being crushed, proper ingredients added, and being put into the right kind of vessel.

When I think of what we go through in our lives – the trials that crush us, purify us, make us sweeter, and make us into the right kind of vessel for the treasure He’s put within us – I think the picture of jam-making applies!

Somehow when I see these jars of beautiful sweet jam, I see this parable. I thought I’d share it with you in case it might speak to you, too. 

Lord I welcome the trials that will reform me into a vessel able to carry the good fruit of God’s nature in me, I want to be sweeter, I want to bear much fruit and fruit and will remain!

I want to get the good stuff, the best stuff, out of all of life so I can give it to others. I pray you will have this blessing in your life, too! 

Warmly,

Terri

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