Life doesn't always give you lemons.

  "When life gives you lemons, make lemon aide." What if life isn't so kind as to give you sunny yellow lemons that smell clean and look so cheerful on your kitchen counter? What about when it gives you mounds of filthy, smelly, nasty manure? How would that look sitting as the center piece of your dining table? What if you open you front door one morning to find your front yard covered in piles of the stuff? Wouldn't you have been more pleased to find a lovely lemon tree growing peacefully among the marigolds and zinnias than an entire pile of Ol'Bessie's final product?
   Sometimes our front door to life does open to a gigantic pile of  steamy crap. We don't want our neighbors to see it, do we? So we hide it. But guess what? It's still there....and it stinks.  There is no hiding it or running from it. It must be dealt with.
  In my own experience with the piles of defication that life sometimes leaves for us as a 'little surprise', I find that the sooner I deal with it the better. And there is no hiding it, really. People we love and care about can see that we aren't quite the same. We don't smile as easily. We don't have much to add to conversation,  except to lament on how unfair this 'crap pile' is.
   But did you know that farmers refer to dung piles as 'Black Gold'? It's because they know that from that pile of poo will rise many great things! The poop breaks down and becomes some of the most wonderful and useful composted fertilizer you could ever get your hands on!! (Who would have ever thought you would want to get your hands on poo?) That is exactly what happens to our lives when we allow God to take all of our poopy problems and use them for His glory. Everything that goes wrong, every chaotic moment, every tear we cry, every scream that comes from our lips can be composted into God's garden and turned into something spectacular. In my own life and unplanned pregnancy turned into a life of a daughter I couldn't be more blessed to be a part of, a terrible divorce became a new beginning to a great marriage; and along the way my garden grew friends closer than sisters, strengthened family bonds, a new home where the roots run deep and so many more blessings.
   So the next time the cow's are having fun in your front yard leaving you wishing for a just a few lemons, remember that this could be the start of your best garden  yet.