When the Bugs Have Sucked out Your Joy

Sometimes it just seems like you're hanging on for dear life like these two honeybees clinging to the hummingbird feeder--

and then finding that the feeder is empty.

It seems like the joy has been sucked out of your life, 

just like the life is slowly being sucked out of these branches of our austree--

the only deciduous tree we have on our property other than the little straggly aspen that is trying to survive next to the sandpile.

Trying to recuperate from a rough bout with the flu, I went for a little walk outside our house and found all this shiny, sticky stuff under our austree. 

And looking up, I behold a wondrous sight that is not very wonderful--slate gray bugs clinging all over in spots on certain branches.

I read that these are sucking bugs that you need to spray with insecticidal soap or some other such solution, before they suck the life of the tree away.

They excrete a sticky substance called "honeydew."

That was the sticky substance attracting all the buzzing flies and bees and other bugs underneath the tree.

And sometimes you have to admit there are just these bugs that try to suck your joy away--

like a week full of flu,

with one family member after another succumbing like dominoes.

And your diet becomes something like yogurt and toast...

or leftovers and soup for the well persons.

I did up a batch of tomato sauce with overripe tomatoes, and made myself this delicious soup one afternoon. I hadn't had tomato soup in a long time. 

Yummy!

But right in the middle of the struggle to doctor sick people and keep well and keep up with  school,

there came this call from Jonathan that he'd found a patch of apple trees near the house he was working on, and the tenant next to it said no one ever picked them and to come help ourselves!

So we packed up a bunch of buckets and bags and a rake and shovel, and we hustled down to this place.

Those trees were not very big, but they were loaded with delightful, delicious, juicy apples.

We had to crawl on hands and knees under the trees to get the apples. Some branches were hanging clear to the ground, and the apples were hiding in the grass, but we got them. 

We raked them.

We picked them.

We gathered them.

We ate them.

And sometimes you have to get on your knees to find your joy again.

It's kind of hiding sometimes, behind the scrubby branches of life's mundane happenings,

and the lowdown, clear-to-the-ground reverses,

and sometimes even down in the dirt.

Just like the apples, you can find joy even in the dirt, in the bleak, in the weeds and scrubbiness of life. 

You can pause for a moment the next day when a second child is sick with flu,

and work is staring you in the face with apples all over the front porch,

and you can behold an unusual early morning rainbow in the west--

right against the blue sky.

A little morning shower had sprinkled right over us, like a sprinkling of joy,

and left us this beautiful rainbow in the morning.

And beside our feet was a rainbow of color--part of God's beautiful creation.

And there were still willing workers to get started on applesauce.

I sorted the worst apples to do up into sauce.

And washed the jars, thinking all the while about how we need to be clean vessels

fit for God's dwelling.

He doesn't want our vessels to be full of cobwebs and dust,

but clean and sparkling, 

ready to be filled....

not with complaints and grouches and scorn and fussing,

but with the sweet sauce of joy.

It takes heat to make applesauce.

And then it takes squeezing and straining,

and don't let's ever forget that in the middle of the fire

and in the middle of the Victorio Strainer of life,

God is working out His plan.

He is purging our hearts from various impurities--

like the stems and cores and seeds and skins that have to come out

before those apples....

 become beautiful, tasty applesauce.

Anybody can have attitudes that just plain rot.

But it takes work and effort to put up apples and to have sweet attitudes that will last.

A heart that will be preserved for eternity has to go through the fire

and through refinement.

Joy doesn't always come automatically.

It's a by-product of a choice to be thankful in everything.

It's a result of submission to the refinement.

It's a result of choosing to believe that God's love is still the foundation of our faith

even when we are in hot water.

We can choose for life to suck the joy out of us,

or for the Victorio strainer to suck out the dross.

We can be vessels fit for Christ's dwelling--

not so much by being some sort of super Christian who is sure there is no more dross left in him,

or by denying that we have any negative emotions anymore,

as by living authentically in a very real world that is full of disappointments and confusions and sickness and sorrow and sin and distress...

And while not denying those, 

yet acknowledging God,

acknowledging that He exists, that He loves us, that His love is everlasting,

and His truth endures forever.

With Him there is peace in the midst of the storm,
forgiveness in the midst of failure,

and apple pie in the midst of a week of flu.

There is a crockpot of applebutter, slowly simmering in the crockpot.

And while there are floods and storms and terrorism and flu and work overload and all sorts of miseries around us and perhaps even within us,

we can turn to something better than an empty hummingbird feeder or even a fresh bouquet of flowers brought home by hubby.

There is grace

and mercy

and peace from a Source that the world does not know.

And down on your knees,

under your own personal apple tree

 you can find 

joy

once again.