When Life Gives You Lemons

Previously posted on September 22, 2015 @ Homescool.ph

I was not in the best of moods as we began homeschooling today. With puffy eyes and a heavy heart, the kids started their Bible reading and Math drills. I was catching up with them as I started to map out the day’s agenda. Strangely, everything in the agenda that I was trying to plan and cover for was all non-homeschooling related. Unlike teachers in regular schools who can at times shut out for a couple of hours, it’s very difficult for homeschooling mothers to shut the rest of the world as we tackle the lessons for the day. It is much tougher to shut out the whirlwind of emotions that flood one’s heart and mind amidst all sorts of trials. I have missed many days of school for one reason or another so I knew that the teaching and learning must go on, I guess. Like most occupations, you can’t say, I don’t feel like working today.

Then my daughter hummed a line, “When life gives you lemons…” (I really don’t know where she picked this up or if she composed it). then I answered, trying to sound as if I knew her song, “You make lemonade.” Then she sang, Lemon pie to the top of her lungs, and we just couldn’t stop laughing as we kept adding to the list… Lemon Chicken, Lemon meringue.

In a very innocent yet charming way, my daughter drove a very important point that shook my heart. God was using her to tell me that I will have my rainbow, not after, but during the rain. God was reassuring me that He will see us through and help us see the silver linings, the half full glass, the light inside the tunnel and not at the end of it, and yes, experience the peace that surpasses understanding (Philippians 4:7) My daughter at that very moment was “homeschooling” me.

For our Read-A-Loud, we have been reading the story of a Christian missionary named, George Muller in the book series, Christian Heroes, Then & Now. George was a man of God who ached for the poorest children in England and set out his life mission to be a “light to those around me and help me find a way to reach the orphans before it’s too late.”

And then it struck me that even today’s chapter was a direct message to me.

“If God is in this, He will supply.” Three-fourths into George Muller’s story, a truly striking and remarkable virtue seen in this man’s life is his faith in God and his “waiting in faith”. And these were rooted in knowing His loving Creator. Oh, how I need to know God more so I can always look up when, “Life indeed gives you lemons.” And then, I remembered what I read this morning in my devotional, abiding in Christ by Cynthia Heald and I quote, “He is our Father, who is continually working all things together for good.” And so, He tells us to rest to be calm and peaceful; and to wait “to anticipate, to count upon, to watch for Him.”

Our Sovereign God has set me where I am now. This is my portion, my lot. He is with me and so I am assured that He will supply what is needed, in His time. What a wonderful promise of hope!

Homeschooling proceeded with a more upbeat, fun mode. I began asking probing questions that made my children think deeper, as they pondered on the events in Mr. Muller’s life. “If God wills it, will it necessarily be easy?” “Or will it be tough because you are being tested?” “If it isn’t His will, will you encounter problems? How will we then know?” Wow, who would have thought tween kids can actually think about these this early. I am grateful that we have so many examples and stories in the Bible, even in our very own lives and yes, of George Muller’s and the remaining chapters in our homeschool Read-A-Loud to shed light on this.

So, the song still echoes in my mind now and I am now smiling. “When life gives you lemons.”

“It is our duty and our privilege to wait upon the Lord in service, in worship, in expectancy, in trust all the days of our live. Our faith will be a tried faith, and if it be of the true kind, it will bear continued trial without yielding. We shall not grow weary of waiting upon God if we remember how long and how graciously He once waited for us.”

Charles Spurgeon