A theological illustration/thought that struck me...

Last weekend my sister, Stacey came home for the weekend. Mom decided that we were going to make an apple pie and applesauce from the apples in her apple trees. So, we dodged raindrops and ventured outdoors to pick the apples.

Mom filled her bucket within minutes. She was done before Stacey and I even got outside. We grabbed our bags and headed out. Stacey and I picked the first few apples and they were gross. They were full of worm holes and just looked nasty. We chucked them into the cornfield and tried for a few more. They all looked gross. We decided that mom must have gotten all the good apples. So, we watched Elizabeth jump in a few mud puddles and inside we went.

Later in the evening, Mom brought out the apples for us to core, peel and slice. Her apples looked as gross or grosser (is that a word?) than ours had that we'd thrown into the field. We kind of made a stink about it, and Mom told us to core and peel the apple and cut away all the yucky parts...it was going to make a good pie. Amazingly, for a yucky as the apples looked on the outside, they looked pretty good on the inside. The corer took out all the center, which was where the majority of the worms resided. So, we just had to cut out the worm holes. Sure enough, after a while, we had peeled enough apples for the pie and the applesauce. My only thought was "I hope it tastes good and Mom's not crazy and that no rogue worms got in"

For lunch on Sunday, we had the delicious pie and wonderful applesauce. It was better than I had even thought it might be and no one found a rogue worm...

Now this leads to my theological thought. It reminded me that we are all flawed. We each have different types of 'worm holes' running through us. We have rotten spots in our core. Yet, God can take all of our 'nastyness' and turns us into something wonderful, if we let Him. The question then becomes, will you let go of your worms so that something wonderful can be the result???

I liked that applesauce so well that I brought home 2 bags of those dirty, rotting, wormy apples. I have been making applesauce all week after Elizabeth has been in bed. We have several bags of it in the freezer so that we can enjoy the fall apples in the middle of winter when the sun seems far away...and it will serve as a reminder to me to self evaluate for any worms that have squirmed into my life recently...