—C.S. Lewis (1898-1963), author, scholar, theologian

Awesome quote! It’s so true, some experiences drive us to our wit’s end and sometimes we feel that we just can’t take it anymore. I am sure that we’ve all had these kinds of experiences. For me, that brutal learning experience has been the years of infertility that we’ve gone through. As ugly as the experience has been, in reality, I have learned a lot and grown a lot. I have learned that I have the most wonderful and supportive husband and have been blessed with extra time with just me and him and time to really know each other and strengthen our relationship. I have learned that having children does not define who I am as a person, nor does it define my worth as a human being. I can fill my life with different meaningful experiences. I have learned that I can handle some pretty hard realities and can look forward in life with a positive attitude, etcetera, and so on and so forth…

Contrary to that ugly experience, today I had a most interesting, muggy, sticky, learning experience. The other morning at o’dark thirty, my sweet friend, Tammy Murri, dropped off a 5 gallon (yes, FIVE gallon) bucket chock full of grapes from her dad’s garden. Yummy, delicious, white concord grapes…

So this morning, I straightened up my kitchen and went to town processing 5 gallons of grapes. LOL! I plucked them off the clusters, washed them and prepared them for their smoooshy journey into grape juice. There were some purple concords mixed in with the greens and a couple of them snuck into the green jars so I have a couple of pinkish beverages, LOL! Tis ok, when we’re ready to drink the grape juice, we will strain out the grapes, chill the juice and enjoy!

About halfway through the bucket, I realized I should be taking photos of this adventure, so I washed the sticky off my hands and grabbed the camera.

So what does grape juice have to do with today’s thought? Well, sometimes God plucks us out of our comfort zones, tosses us into sticky situations and heats us up, but in the end we learn and usually find something sweet waiting for us.

Feel free to leave a comment and share something you’ve learned from… who knows.. it might just touch someone’s heart.