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The Lost Recipe

Lately, especially among working women, I've seen tooooooo many negative facebook posts. Actually one negative post, is one too many. I'm not talking about second amendment right rantings, disgust with the crowds at Walmart, or diatribes on our declining society's role models. I'm talking about any status, tweet, or comment, whether its lengthy and eloquent or short and sharp, that boils down to this common sentiment: "my life stinks."

Ladies! Ok, guys, too, but I think we will all agree that the women are worse about this. We get emotionally worked up over a subsection of our lives--either personal, professional, or physical--and allow that one lost battle to win the whole war on our self-esteem, our self-worth...our entire lives become a failure, everything's a sham, all is lost, oh, the infamy, tragedy...it's the apocalypse!!!

Have you ever put a marshmallow in the microwave? It's exciting to watch it puff up...oh, the wonder of it, much like the excitement (and satisfaction, it would seem) some people get out of being melodramatic. You know the bigger it gets, the closer you are to a huge, messy disaster...you want to open the microwave door, push the stop button, you know you should, but you're totally sucked in by the awe of the growing marshmallow....then, BOOM. As you spend the next hour scraping the sticky mess from every crevice of the inside of the microwave, you wonder why you did it.

That's not the lost recipe. The lost recipe is Lemonade. Not the amazingly sweet, goopy frozen cylinder that plops out the paper can into your pitcher before you mix it up (although that sounds really good right now)....No, I'm talking about the kind of lemonade you make when life hands you lemons.

Since the dawn of time (to borrow my son's favorite opening line for every A+ paper he wrote in high school), women have been the heart of the home---the makers of sunshine on dark days, the spinners of happy, funny tales that chase away anxiety, the crafters of joy and thankfulness out of the rubble.

I can picture Eve, with little Cain and Abel romping around as Adam comes in for dinner, sweating and exhausted from working the fields all day. He's starting to unload about what a shame it was they got kicked out of Eden. With a watchful glance toward the boys, she steps up to him, throws her arms around him, and tells him how proud she is of him...that it doesn't matter where they are, as long as they are together...

Such women knew how to take life's lemons and make lemonade, passing down the recipe from generation to generation...I'm sure it's one of the things that made this country a great, prosperous nation. Think of the stalwart hearts and spirits of the pioneer women, the women who lovingly bandaged fallen soldiers on both sides of the civil war. Later, this same quality of woman kept the assembly lines running while our men were at war, then raised a baby-boom generation that would change world with its technological and industrial advancements. You've heard it said, behind every great man, there is a great woman...time and again...actually there were two--one was a mother who knew how to take lemons and make lemonade. What happen to that recipe? Have we lost it? God help our country, our families, if that's the case.

Every time triumph was born from adversity, it came about through a resilience of spirit and attitude.
No one ever triumphed with a "woe is me" life symphony. No one ever boo-hoo'd their way to the finish line to win. There was never a victory party that followed a pity party.

Life is hard, but we need to recognize that it's hard for everyone. You're not the first one to have a rough day, or a rough life, so get down off your soapbox and see what's going on with the people around you. Are you using every forum to shine a little light for others, or to throw a spotlight on yourself and your troubles?

Start fresh today. Get those lemons and make some lemonade. Whatever you have left that's good in your life--focus on it, and pour it out for others.

Ecclesiastes 10:12New International Version (NIV)

12 Words from the mouth of the wise are gracious,
    but fools are consumed by their own lips.

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