From Yuckples to Delights: Finding Joy

I had planned to share with you this week about the results we’ve seen from the recent God’s Faithfulness in Death series, but I’ve felt a pause in my heart. Maybe there’s more. Maybe I’m not ready. I’m not sure. But this morning, I’m rejoicing in the pause. The pause allowed Hubby, Little Lady, and me to make a short but much-needed adventure this weekend.

I have been craving apples – not just a fancy or a hankering, but a deep, insatiable yearning – for weeks. There’s something about a good apple, especially when your body isn’t at its best. It tastes like life and health and everything good.

Or… I mean… it’s supposed to.

I’ve bought so many apples recently only to split them between my dog and the wildlife out back. They have tasted flat. They have been frozen. They have been, I assume, last year’s leftovers. They just haven’t been… apples. More like… yuckples (get it? Yucky-apples? Yuckples?). They’ve left me disappointed and frustrated. All the apples in Michigan cannot possibly taste this bad, I thought. And then I saw that Barron Orchards was open for the season and I remembered: All the apples in Michigan are not that bad; Some are good.

Really good.

We are blessed by the friendship of the lovely couple who live about an hour’s drive away and own the prolific Barron Orchards. Their apples are really good. So we jumped. What’s a Saturday for, after all, if not a quick trip to purchase more apples than you know what to do with? Little Lady was so excited to go to ‘the apple store’ – and not the high tech, smart phone, tablet, spend a thousand dollars store; the original apple store: The orchard. She was so excited, in fact, that she found a produce bag I’d crocheted years ago and insisted she bring it to carry home HER apples.

Little Lady was not disappointed. Mrs. Barron eagerly welcomed Little Lady behind the table of apples and helped her select a beautiful bouquet of fruit. When Mrs. Barron offered her a lovely golden yellow apple, Little Lady innocently asked, “When will it be ripe?” She kindly explained to my daughter that it was ripe and ready to eat, just a different color than the red apples.

They are not a pick-your-own orchard, so after we chose our apples, Little Lady settled for walking up and down the fence separating the trees from the drive to see whether she could reach any of the apples that had fallen (up and down and up and down and back and forth and there and back again… a real Hobbit’s Tale kind of thing, to be honest – she almost slipped through the gate and disappeared altogether [is three-and-a-half too young to start reading Tolkien?]).

And in a grace too big for words, I got to hug the Mother of the Apples – Mrs. Barron, herself. I don’t think she knows how much it means to me just to be able to hug her.

As is my tradition (as I’m sure it is the tradition of all who visit Barron Orchard), we hadn’t even pulled out of their drive before I bit into my first apple. I ate two and a half on the way home, but let’s be fair – the Cortland was the biggest Cortland I’ve ever seen (aside from the Barrons’ Wolf Rivers, it might’ve been the biggest apple I’ve ever seen). And it was the best thing I’ve ever tasted, worth every disappointing piece of fruit I’ve encountered these past two months.

It may seem trite. Perhaps it is. But there is joy to be found. If life is handing you disappointment after disappointment, please don’t stop seeking joy; please don’t stop looking for good fruit. It does exist. You will find it. It may be that you, like Little Lady and Mr. Bilbo, need to go on an adventure, but I promise – the bland yuckples of life are not the end of your journey. There is fruit – good fruit – to be found. There is nourishment for your body. There is delight for your senses. There is beauty in friendship for your soul. There is amazing-good fruit.

I daresay it will taste all the sweeter for all the yuckples you’ve endured.

From my heart to yours,