When Life Hands You Lemons…Stick ‘Em in Your Bra!

I love to go on pinterest, browse through all the DIY projects and see how people can make benches out of doors and old beds or lampshades out of toilet paper rolls. When people get creative they can make something beautiful, fun or at the very least, interesting out of ANYTHING. Usually it’s something that was rundown, beat up, or thrown out. All they had to do was give it a little love, creativity, elbow grease and walla! It goes from crap to craft! Even the ‘pinstrocities’ are awesome because even though they’re epic fails, they’re entertaining and you learn from them. Everyone works in different mediums whether it’s stone, clay, broken glass, red solo cups, pumpkins, license plates, letters on a page and even toilet paper rolls. There is someone out there who can take these things and makes them into something beautiful or interesting. If only life were so simple, right.

Life is full of ugliness, challenges and seemingly useless toilet paper rolls that we don’t know what to do with them; there’s no avoiding it, no matter who you are. Rich, poor, famous and obscure, no one can avoid it. Sometimes these things in our lives are within ourselves and sometimes it’s outside of our control, but still affects us. I’ve learned in my own life to take that challenge and by putting a little love, creativity and elbow grease into it, it can become something beautiful (or at least less ugly). Raw, natural diamonds are not the pretty polished stones sticking out of the mine wall you recall from Snow White, but you get a skilled jeweler working on it and they know exactly how to make that stone look amazing. Even though the stone still has flaws within it, the jeweler has been able to give that particular stone just the right cut to bring out its best qualities to make the stone sparkle and shine. Everything in our world goes through a refining process, whether it’s done by man or by nature, the fact is, we are all being crafted into something different than we were to start out with.

You know that saying “When life hands you lemons, make lemonade.” Well, I always loved the Crabby Road cartoon where Maxine says, “When life hands you lemons…tuck ‘em in your bra…couldn’t hurt.” I get what they mean by that saying but you have to have SUGAR and water to make lemonade otherwise that lemonade would be super gross. We are the ones that have to provide the sugar, it can be hard to find sometimes when you’re buried in lemons but if you look hard enough, you can find it. For me:

J  It’s hanging out with my oddball family that makes me laugh (It’s a Davis thing; most people don’t get it but that’s okay.)

J  Watching Psych

J  When my boys have sweet moments with me

J  A date with my husband

J  Reading – scriptures, classic literature, fiction, non-fiction…any good book.

J  Dr. Pepper with Sonic ice.

J  A trip to the bookstore…alone…for as long as I want

J  Writing a great scene for my book or a great blog post

J  Playing with my boys and making them giggle

J  Time to take a nap or a shower long enough to get my legs shaved

J  A good friend who checks in on me out of the blue (and doesn’t mind that I’m still in my pajamas at 3:00pm)

J  Someone who will just listen to me ramble (I get very little adult interaction, so I go a little nuts when I get around grown-ups.)

J  Most of all, the sweetest sugar in my life is my knowledge that my Heavenly Father is not letting lemons rain down on me for nothing.

He refines the earth in the same way he refines us and for the same reasons, to make us into something more beautiful (if we let him). Beaches are sandy because they endure the constant barrage of the ocean waves; the amazing Grand Canyon was cut by a patient river and we are not much different. He sees to it that we get the most out of our short life on this beautiful earth he’s created. He knows what he’s doing and we have to trust him. If everything were easy, there would never be any sense of accomplishment. Hiking to the top of a mountain peak gives you a much more rewarding view (and better perspective) than walking up a small hill. Sometimes the most rewarding things in life are the things we’ve had to work the hardest for and sacrifice the most of ourselves for.

Lately, I’ve been given buckets of lemons and toilet paper rolls. I keep thinking to myself, I can’t handle ONE more thing but that’s about the time I get a phone call with just that. So if I’m not picking up my phone when you call, now you know why. I keep trying to see what beautiful thing I can make out of all these lemons and toilet paper rolls because what else am I going to do with them? I’ve spent a lot of my time looking for more sugar to make this lemonade a little sweeter. The funny thing is, I think I’ve figured it out while writing this blog post. I have a lot more sugar for my lemonade than I thought I did, so raise a glass with me and toast to life’s challenges; may they continue making me into something better than I was before!

And now, for the toilet paper rolls…J