RIPE AND READY

RIPE AND READY

At our most recent family reunion, my husband’s eighty-year-old-plus aunt handed me a beautiful lemon from a tree in her yard. I was amazed by its size and its slightly lighter yellow skin, so different from the lemons I buy at the big box store. As she offered it, she said, “This will yield about three-fourths cup of juice.” Amazing, I thought—beautiful and juicy. When we arrived home, I placed the lemon on the kitchen counter and kept admiring that heavenly created masterpiece. It even became the subject of a photo shoot.

Before we left for a long weekend away, I moved the lemon to the refrigerator, hoping to preserve both its beauty and its promise: at least three-quarters cup of tart juice for the lemon vinaigrette I imagined pouring over kale and quinoa salad.

On the day we were to return home, something I read drew my mind back to that lemon sitting in the dark, controlled environment of our refrigerator, hundreds of miles away.

My aunt had blessed us with a gift she had nurtured, grown, and carried from California to East Tennessee. The lemon was ripe and ready for use. I was deeply appreciative of the thought and the gift, but I am certain her intent was never for that lemon to become a trophy. “It will yield at least three-fourths cup of juice” was an invitation: the lemon was meant to be squeezed.

Here’s where the rubber meets the road for us. You and I were given gifts on our born day. Those gifts have been lying within us, nurtured and grown by life experiences. At some point, they become ripe and ready to be shared in community. If we do not share them, they can rot, dry out, or become tough and unusable—the same fate waiting for my prized lemon if I do not make haste and use it.

HERE’S A TRUTH—no one can definitively tell you when your fruit, your gift, is mature and ripe. You may very well pluck, pick, or harvest unripe fruit. I call that taking a risk. Others call it an experience. But if you desire it and keep trying, the fruit will ripen and become ready to work its miracle in your world. To do otherwise is to withhold your unique contribution from the universe.

My aunt did not pull that fruit from the tree, carry it across the country, and place it in my hands so I could simply admire it. It was ripe and ready to bless her community. I am going to zest the magnificent peel and freeze it for a future recipe. I am going to make lemon vinaigrette dressing. She was blessed. She blessed me. Now I must pay it forward by blessing others who will eat the salad.

So, I am left wondering: what other ripe gifts am I withholding from the world?

Romans 12:6

CONSIDER THE WORD’S OF PABLO PICASSO, “The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.”

THE GIGANTIC LEMON