Whoever it was who so quaintly said “life is just a bowl of cherries” was either tremendously naive, or a master of understatement. Because if you spend time around a cherry tree that knows its business, you know better than to refer to its fruit in any kind of singular. Obedient trees yield too much fruit for anyone to deal with.
I love the picture of blessing that fruit trees are. All this bounty – turning dark, falling, while we frantically try to catch it and turn it into something. Pounds and pounds of luscious fruit too high for us to hope to reach. Even on ladders that are on top of picnic tables while someone in the tree pushes a branch down.
This tree of ours has already made at least ten children feel faint with cherries on multiple occasions. It has fed neighbors, friends, and children who know better than to eat even one more cherry but just can’t stop. It is a little microcosm, a little picture in juice of what God does for us every day. We can get in this tree of blessing and pick and pick and pick and eat and eat and eat and never exhaust the supply. Sometimes the blessings and the fruit and the wildness of it all can make us think that cherries aren’t what we wanted after all. They are gross to step on barefoot. They need to be picked, and jammed, and ice creamed, and cobblered.
God’s blessings don’t come to us in tidy baskets. They don’t fall to the ground pitted and frozen. They splatter juice on our patio tables, and stain faces and fingers. God’s blessings come in their own season, and sometimes they come so fast and so full that they make you feel a little woozy for a minute. But only for a minute, and then you’ll be out picking some more.
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Those cherries inspired daydreams of an orchard! Delicious!
Love the picture of grace too. At our farm house we collecting bushels of pears from trees that we had nothing to do with planting. And they just gave and gave.
Happy pie eating and if you’re not cherried out, try out this cherry clafouti. Yum! http://www.marthastewart.com/344662/cherry-clafouti
Cherry trees always remind me of the one my mom grew up with in her backyard, although I’m not sure it really knew what it was doing. Mostly the birds picked it and the cherries were a tad sour.
Anyway, one year my grandparents decided to use a net to keep the birds out and actually harvested enough to make a pie. Well wouldn’t you know, my mom (junior high?) was carrying that pie out to the back patio and the screen door got in the way – you can just imagine THAT mess. I think after that they didn’t bother much with the tree again.
Hi! I’m not sure how to send you an e-mail, so I thought I would just send you a comment and you would get this. I’m not sure if you’ve heard about this, but there is a project called the Morning Center.
This is the website:
http://morningcenter.org/
There is a little video clip about what it is, and I thought your readers might be interested.
Blessings,
Sheri Boyd
p.s.–I love cherry trees. I think a good cherry tree should increase your property value significantly.
LOVE it, Rachel! We don’t have cherry trees, but I’ve enjoyed watching our meager garden grow here in NC and have been reminded over and over of how fruitfulness is messy work. It’s the best kind of work but definitely messy. I think your mom mentioned something Nate said awhile back about how heavy those baskets of fruit can feel at times. That’s been encouraging to me as well. On a side note my sweet girl, Beka, is heading to Moscow in just four days. I’m so thankful to know she’s jumping right into such a great community of believers. It’s a bit easier to let her go:)
Your words encourage me this morning! Thank you.
Thanks for sharing this…such a blessing to my heart.
I had similar thoughts yesterday as I helped my sisters harvest overwhelming amounts of raspberries from our mother’s garden.
That is a lot of cherries. I have just recently become addicted to Ranier cherries and was very sad to read how hard they are to grow. Apparently I am addicted to the wrong cherries.
Aaaaa, *Rainier*. I live in Washington state, seriously.
Wowie – I do love your way with words! What a great picture and reminder.
We have a basketful of blessings arriving this fall and by Christmas will have 4 grandbabies 2 and under, all of whom live within 2 miles of us. I LOVE it! But it also can get a bit crazy with the baby-showers, blanket making, FOUR sets of Advent gifts instead of 2, Grammy Days with everyone, etc., etc., etc. Life is so full of goodness that you do get a woozy sometimes.
I do find that loving the blessings makes it’s easy to feel guilty for any momentary light-headedness. Thanks for this picture reminding me that stuffing myself on baby blessings is good, and it’s okay to feel a little panicked sometimes, but to take a deep breath and get back to picking. 🙂
Loved this article – really is such a great example of God’s over abundant love and gracious giving. And oh those cherries look delicious! You know, if you get overwhelmed with them, you could always let the kids open up a little roadside fruit stand (lemonade stands are just too basic, give them a challenge!) and sell them for $1.00 a lb or something. (Our local grocery store charges at least $3.00 a lb so I think you’d sell a lot pretty quickly!) Give the kiddos something to do and teach them the value of earning money? Random thought of the day. 🙂
I have been searching for you online so I can give you a feedback on your book. I couldn’t find your personal blog, I don’t know if you have one. But, anyway… I just wanted to say I finished “loving the little years” and I have implemented some of your ideas. Thank you so much for writing this book.
I have a 8 y.o. DD that is very emotional and has a hard time controlling herself. she also loves horses, so when you wrote about the horses and their riders you saved my life. 🙂 I shared the story with her, and now whenever she is about to lose it I say “Hold your horses!” and immediately she calms down, or better, chooses to control her emotions.
I will be reading the book again… there is so much wisdom and insight in it…thank you, thank you.
Tereza