My Daily Pause

One of the premiere treats I enjoyed in my childhood was my grandmother’s blackberry jelly. To this day, I have experienced none other like it, and I have taste tested every store bought version of blackberry jelly that I have ever found. It had the perfect combination of tartness that caused your jaw muscles to contract and intense sweetness that would rescue those muscles just before they became too uncomfortable. Imagine my surprise later in life that the quest for that seasonal treat would contribute one of the building blocks of my adulthood.

    During the summer that I would have been a rising 6^th grader, I had noticed that the blackberries were coming in very nicely. This should be a good year for all of the fruit and berry deserts, but Oh! Especially the jelly! From the time I noticed they were getting ripe, I’m sure that a week or so had passed and no jelly had appeared. A quick calculation told me that it had been long enough to wait so I asked grandma when we were going to have blackberry jelly this year. She just said, “Go down to the bushes and fill this pan.”

As she bent under the sink, the sound of that familiar pan clanging under there was all that I could hear. I was frozen in terror. When that pan came out, someone was going to have to spend some time in the garden picking something. Since it held at least 40 or 50 gallons, it would take hours of hard labor in the sun to fill. Now, there it was in front of me. I had no option but to take it and walk out to face my self-inflicted chore.

I had been out there for what had to have been hours and the bottom of my pan was barely covered. The berries had been out too long so the birds had pecked the seeds out of the biggest, juiciest ones. The briars that they grow on seem to scratch me no matter what I tried to avoid it. My hands were sticky from broken berries and burning from the scratches. Then, one of the most joyous sites I can remember from those days was my grandmother coming out to rescue me! This ordeal was just about over. I can remember her soft laugh emanating from under the pith hat that she wore to do her gardening. It was a laugh that always meant “here, let me show you how.”

In a matter of minutes, the pan was full enough for grandma and she invited me back up to have something to drink. On the walk up I asked her how long I had been out there and she thought no more than a half an hour. I followed up with the question that became part of the fabric of my life. “Why does it have to be so hard to get the blackberries?” With that same soft laugh she replied, “So you’ll remember to be thankful for what you have.”

I’m fairly sure that I didn’t have a lot of use for that answer as a sixth grader, but later in life it sure did help me understand what James was trying to say in James 1:2-4James 1:2-4
English: King James Version (1611) - KJV
2 My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; temptation: or, trials ³ Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. ⁴ But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.  

or Paul in Romans 5:3-5Romans 5:3-5
English: King James Version (1611) - KJV
3 And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; ⁴ And patience, experience; and experience, hope: ⁵ And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.  

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where they suggest that we should be glad to be challenged. I’m also sure that grandma would have been proud to know that time we had together was the first thing I thought of when I was taught that we weren’t promised an easy life as Christians, but the rewards are going to be grander than our imagination can create. I am sure too, that the jelly was the best ever that year.

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Filed under: Butch Adams, Devotional on July 16th, 2008