When life gives you lemons...

Make lemonade

 I really like this quote. It's a rather simple quote but yet after you sit and think about it it means more. What does it exactly mean? Well I believe that it means when things get sour in life make it sweet =) Pretty simple huh? Ya...not really. It takes some work. To make something "sour" into something "sweet" we must...

#1- stop being negative and start being positive.

It sounds easier then it is. I would know because being positive is something I struggle with. I usually automatically have a negative look on things. Instead of looking for the positive in every situation I look at the negative. Unfortunately I can be a "look at the glass half empty" kind of person.Not a good trait to have. It's harder for me to easily turn the sour into sweet because I'm not looking for the sweetness, I'm looking for the sour. 

Another thing you must do is...

#2 Stop complaining, start praising

So many times we complain about life instead of thank God that we actually are alive! God gave us life to live fully for him! Not walk around with our heads buried in the sand and constantly mope around. Live life to it's fullest! Live for God and he'll make the sour things in life turn sweet.

another thing we must learn is...

#3 it takes patience

Ya, this is something else I fail in. I am like so not a patient person...at all. Just ask my brother and he'll tell you =P If I don't see something happening fast I kind of give up and loose faith. But sometimes faith consists of waiting...often for a long time. When making lemonade (homemade, not the kind where you dump some powder in a thing of water and then lemonade magically appears) it takes patience. I mean you got to squeeze the lemons (don't ever squeeze lemons when you have paper cuts! It will literally burn your hand off) which takes a while, and then you got to stir it all together until you think your arms going to fall off. So yes if you want something sweet to come out of something sour you've got to have patience.

and last but not least...

#4 you must realize that more lemons make better lemonade

to be honest that's the truth. If you only put one or two lemons in your lemonade it tastes like nasty, sticky water. (at least in my opinion it does! I hate lemons but I love SUPER sweet lemonade) It takes a lot of lemons to make great lemonade! Sometimes in life God gives us sour things for we learn to take them and transform them into something sweet. We do this by keeping our faith in him. God can make anything sweet. He has our whole life planned out for us. Without lemons in our life we wouldn't be as thankful for the good things, without lemons in life we wouldn't learn to completely lean on God. We'd begin to think we've got things all figured out. That's human nature- when things start going our way we forget about God and what he's done for us. The Israelites did that when God freed them from captivity. When things were going hard they turned to God, but when things started going good they turned from him! Why is this? Why do we seem to forget about God when things are going well!?! God sends us lemons in life to show us how weak we really are, and to face the reality that we couldn't make it without him. 

Are you having lemons in your life right now? Are things a little bit sour? Just remember to lean on God, give him control, and then he will make things sweet!