Stained Fingers

The last few weeks have been long and painful. I have already done one week of summer youth camp and I'm quickly preparing for another that starts in a few days. A few weeks after that, I'll head to CIY with my students. It is always good to get away from regular life and spend time with my students. This, however, does not come without much pain. When I plan to be gone for a week, I have to work twice as hard before I leave so I can be gone and then twice as hard when I come back to catch up from being gone. I guess it is one of ther perks of ministry. Even with the best of intentions, it always seems like 90% of what I need to get done before I go ends up being completed in the last 2 or 3 days in the office. Needless to say, the days have been dragging along.

One of the things I hate most about when things are hectic is that I don't get the chance to (or better put--I don't make the time to) sit and watch what is going on around me. I think I've been to my favorite coffee shop once in the last 3 weeks. During these times, I find that my most reflective time is spent on the lawn mower, though it is hard not to concentrate on straight lines and patterns in the grass.

This afternoon as I cut the grass, I was mentally chewing on some struggles and frustrations that I'm having with my ministry. It was a good time to sit and think, though I would have liked to actually come to some conclusions. As I made the last few passes back and forth in the yard, agruing and pleading with God about my ministry, I noticed something out of the corner of my eye in the brush and weeds--black raspberries.

Now, some of you might not get excited at the sight of fresh, non-store fruit. I do, though not entirely because it is fresh, non-store fruit. When I was growing up, my mother and grandmother did a lot of canning and freezing. For those of you who have no clue of what in the heck I'm talking about, canning and freezing are ways of perserving the things one grows in a garden--yet another thing in my past that is becoming extinct in the present world. Liken it to the cans of soup and veggies you buy at the store, only a million times better.

My mom would always make homemade tomato sauce and tomato juice every year, along with canning green beans, yellow beans, pickles, pickled red beets, pickled peppers, grape juice, and sauerqraut. We would also freeze things like corn and strawberries. It was always a brutal time of the year because I was the ever present helper. It would be 90 degrees outside and I'd be stuck picking the veggies, helping her prepare them for canning, and then watching them boil for an hour so the lids would seal.

My grandmother would always outdo my mother. She, in addition to the above assortments, would also make jams, jelly, some canned meat, and an interesting concoction called minced meat, which was sort of like fruitcake without the cake.

The worst of all the things we prepared were raspberries. Not because it did not turn out good. The raspberry jam was always the best of everything Gram made. No, the reason it was the worst was because picking raspberries is not a fun thing. Raspberries grow on vines that are much like rose stems--laced with barbs and thorns. Adding to the mehem, most raspberries grow in the wild. Thus, take the barbs and thorns that are included on the vines and add to them the assortment of other malicious plants that have taken up residence nearby. AND, adding to the agony of cuts, jabs, and much pain, the raspberry juice would stain your fingers a nice deep purple bruise color.

After dinner and our worship rehearsal at church, I took the time to trounce once again into the briars and thicket. I ended up with a small bowl of very nice black raspberries and slightly stained fingers. All the while, my mind was flashing back to long days of berry picking with my mom and my grandmother. Gram has been gone now for quite some time, but the memories of her and the joy that she shared with us are still there and vivid.

And now, as I sit here and type, I realize that through memories and fruit, God has helped me to be a little more patient with my frustrations. Picking raspberries is really not that fun in itself, but the time spent with family and the jam that results from the efforts are beyond priceless. Am I taking time to enjoy the family? Am I making jam? Or, am I focused on how bad the briars are at the moment?