We’ve all heard that saying: “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade!”

It’s cute, right? Who doesn’t love lemonade? The saying encourages us to make the best of life’s challenges. But I prefer to look at life as a fruit salad.

Fruit salad is a staple at summer picnics and gatherings. It’s colorful, with many textures and flavors, and it includes a variety of fruits. And even though fruit salad doesn’t typically contain lemons, it does have fruits that are somewhat tangier than others.

Some of the fruits are bursting with flavor! Some are plump and juicy, while others are less sweet and may turn sour quickly if not eaten. But together they all make a beautiful display and serve as a delight to the taste buds.

Fruit salad would be so boring if it only contained one kind of fruit.

The same can be said for the “fruit salad” of our lives. We have colorful places in our lives where we excel and shine! We also have sour, sticky places that usually stem from guilt and regret. We have sweet spots, where we feel loved and cherished. And we have the bitter areas as well, whether it is grief, loneliness, or a hardened heart. All of these together form our “fruit salad.”

One person’s salad may appear heartier or more flavorful. We may look at the fruits on top of her salad and think “I want a fruit salad like that!” not knowing that underneath the top pieces lay the ones that are bitter to the taste. But we can take heart!

Our lives are created by the culinary Master, who knows the seasons of our fruit, the perfect cut and just the right combination of ingredients.

He doesn’t let the fruit go bad, and He continually picks out the rotten pieces, replacing them with new ones, fresh from His own vines. Our gracious, loving Heavenly Father knows each and every piece of fruit in the salad of our lives. And He loves us despite of the bitter and sour ones. He tenderly picks them out, making the salad sweeter and more fragrant.

So while we may look at life’s hard stuff as lemons, and we may cling to the cliche of turning them into lemonade, let’s go with the fruit salad and trust that our Heavenly Father knows just what belongs in each of our bowls.

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Related: Mix up a fun fruit salad in this beautiful serving bowl that says “Grace for Today.”

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