What's that old adage? "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade." Some people even go as far as saying "add salt and tequila". Well, maybe I would have chanted that from my soapbox in my heathenistic days, but now I'm more apt to cry out, "build a stand and sell some lemonade!"
With age I've grown wiser...
with God I'm growing stronger!
Someone very close to me and their "friend" laughed at me for serving in my outreach & women's ministries and working in the non-profit sector. When I tearfully confided in this person about one of my non-profit jobs ending, they betrayed my confidence and happily shared with their friend saying, "Hey, the devil sure is busy!" They both laughed at my misfortune as if they were genuinely overjoyed if the enemy were wreaking havoc in my life. "Oh stop! She gets the worst jobs!" their friend replied in response to me working for a domestic violence shelter. They laughed at me for majoring in Ministry at a Christian university. They mocked me by calling me"The Preacher Lady". I happened to hear all this on a recorded conversation between the two of them. There were other things said by these two individuals on numerous occasions that were nothing less than cruel, vicious, just down-right nasty.
After months of crying because of the deeply rooted betrayal, of feeling alone because there was no proverbial shoulder to cry on, of feeling like a failure because I believed their nasty barbs, God whispered, "They talked about me too...you must be in good company." He spoke to me what I had been preaching to everyone else who had been talked about, ridiculed or mocked. It was time to pour a tall glass of sweet, ice-cold lemonade and drink for myself. I was done listening to those pitiful little voices in my head that tried to convince me that I was "less than" because "Greater is He that is within me..." 1John 4:4 (NIV). I began the process of making lemonade from the watermelon-sized lemons they had hurled at me behind my back for who knows how long.
Those vicious comments were meant to break my spirit, even though they weren't spoken to me directly. Those hateful remarks uttered to snuff out the light God placed within me. Those cruel lies to assassinate my character in order to justify their own wrong-doings. I now thank those two individuals for their deceitfulness and their betrayal because what they actually did was set me on a journey of:
Rediscovery - Rejuvenation - Rededication - Redemption
"You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done,
the saving of many lives."
~ Genesis 50:20 (NIV)
God has taken those words that were meant to hurt me and transformed it into a platform where I can help someone out there begin the process of healing and forgiveness and "sell some lemonade". You're not alone. It's time to take the power back from those that set out to hurt you.
"It's time wash off those dirty lemons. It's time to knead those hard lemons in order to get the most juice out of them. It's time to cut those lemons and pick out the seeds. It's time to squeeze them as hard as you can to get all the tart juice out. It's time to add fresh water to the juice to make enough lemonade. It's time to pour in plenty of sugar but still, have just a bit of tartness. Now...go sell your lemonade!"
~ Tracy Spence aka The Preacher Lady