For the purpose of this post, I will use an allegory. Ever heard the saying, “If life gives you lemons, make lemonade?” It is certainly a positive outlook, but many people see the lemonade making as one time event. What if you are tiered of life’s lemons? What if you are just tired of making lemonade? What if you just don’t care about making any more lemonade because you are just not up to it anymore? Life is unpredictable, and some of us don’t get one or two lemons, we get an entire orchard. Life is not fair, and maybe, by now you are just tired of making lemonade and drinking it too. You have reached the point of letting these lemons rot, and you don’t even care if they stink.

Many of us have been there at one point or another, and if not, count yourself blessed and be grateful for it. Society expects people to grab the juicer and start making lemonade right away, many times in the midst of a lemon rainfall. If we don’t, we are “lacking courage” or are labeled of “too little faith,” or many other things. Many times, we are expected to bounce back at the blink of an eye, and we are bombarded with positive thinking messages and expectations, as if we are being rushed to get well and function again; it is expected. It is what people do, to bounce back from a “sour episode” as soon as possible, to keep going on, to keep on living. And that is what we want to do. Deep inside we wish that tomorrow was different as quickly as possible. It is harder when other people depend on us.

Every person is different, and we all react in similar or not too similar ways to life’s situations. The way I see it is that we know our own internal temperature; we know our life’s speed, and we know how hurt and affected we have been by an avalanche of lemons. Or maybe, one large lemon is all it takes to weaken our strength and make us doubt our own courage. Besides God, we are the only ones to know how we truly feel, how hard we did fall, and how much time until we can even stand up, much more give that first step again. We should not feel pressured by the growing line in front of our lemonade stand. If any pressure, it should be our own desire or eagerness to join the land of the happy living again.

Whether or not we are ready to make lemonade, in our terms that is, we should consider a few things. We don’t have to make lemonade right away, and we don’t have to make it alone. There are people standing in line at the lemonade stand that are willing to go behind the counter and help us make lemonade; some might even cheer us up while we try. We just have to let them know how thin and fragile our glass is at the time, so they don’t stir too fast in their eagerness to help. But most important, we have the help and love of the Creator of it all (of the lemons, the lemonade stand, the lemon-makers, the helpers …) and He is certainly waiting patiently and lovingly for us to make the sweetest lemonade of all.