I don’t want lemonade.
You know that saying when
life gives you lemons make lemonade?
But what if you don’t want
lemonade? Or the lemons for that matter.
I am a lime girl myself. Someone put a lime in a ginger ale once for me
and thought I went to soda heaven.
Lemonade is fine I guess.
But it’s not what I want.
I want out.
Let me explain so you don’t
worry.
Ever been on a roller
coaster or an amusement park ride and you sit down and hear the click and
think… what in the world did I get myself into? You want out. Right then.
You search frantically for
an escape. You debate whether to call the person back that just put their hand
down near your nether region and checked whatever flimsy contraption is keeping
you locked in. By the time you crane your neck to get their attention it is too
late. The hiss sounds and you are on your way.
And then you ride the ride,
and sometimes it feels great and other times it’s terrible. And the funny thing
is you never know which is which until it is done.
Or it could be a ride that
you say you survived and you are proud of your accomplishment but you kind
wished you never rode it in the first place and you certainly don’t want to
ride it again.
That is life sometimes isn’t
it? You are not sure if something will work out until you ride the ride.
It could be great, or hard,
or sad. Or both.
Riding a rollercoaster is a
nice metaphor. It has a distinctive beginning, middle and end. And the worst
that happens is a woozy stomach.
But what about this?
You are in pain. Something
really hard happened and you want out. It is an emergency exit kind of out. The
kind where you can’t sit still out. You are stuck. You are lost. Or sad. Or
angry. Or brokenhearted. Or baffled. Or hurting. Or helpless. Or lonely. Or depressed. Or anxious. Or… fill
in the blank.
And you don’t know how it is
going to end. You want to have hope. You want to drink a tall glass of lemonade
on a hot summer’s day. But you are not sure you can stomach it.
Or to put it another way.
What happens when life
doesn’t hand you lemons it chucks them at your face? And not just one, but
repeatedly, chucks them in your face.
And we are supposed to make
lemonade?
I know people who say
everything happens for a reason.
What I think they really mean is that sometimes bad things happen and we
don’t know why but we sure hope it is for a good purpose or at least something
good can come from it.
Something.
But what happens before the
something happens?
What happens in these
moments?
When you wake up in the
morning and immediately feel that pain come rushing over you. And you think to
yourself, oh my goodness, that wasn’t a dream. It happened. (Whatever “it” is
and I think most of us have had our “its.”)
When your goal becomes make
it through the day.
When you swing through
emotions so fast you can’t tell which ones are real.
When you don’t know which
direction you should go.
When well-intentioned people
make it worse.
When you feel lonely,
forgotten or abandoned.
When you want to do
something to help and you can’t.
When you become paralyzed by
fear because you wonder “what else can go wrong” and then you imagine what else
can go wrong and you can’t stop the anxiety train.
When you realize what was is
gone and now you have a new normal.
When you are stalked by
regret.
When you just want an
emergency exit. Or a fast forward
button. Or a rewind.
What do you do?
No seriously, I am asking.
What do you do?
Words that come to my mind
are: Pray. Hope. Lean on friends. One day at a time. Hang on. Believe. Love.
Cry. Bleed. Cry some more. Love some more. Trust. Rest. Breathe in and Breathe
out.
Wait.
Oh, that last one.
Waiting can look like
gripping the sides of a ride you never wanted to go on in the first place. To
make lemonade is simple and hard. Keep holding on.
Waiting can also be sitting
alone in the dark.
Stop. Let me try to put a
little lemonade in that last one.
My old pastor years ago gave
me something to do while I was going through a difficult time. She told me,
“Sit in a dark space. Light a candle. And sit there. Don’t do anything. Don’t
say anything. You don’t even have to think of anything just sit there.”
That advice stuck with me. I
can’t remember if I actually did it. But I am thinking it might be appealing
right now. Light up the darkness. Slice that lemon. Smell the citrus.
Wait.
Sometimes we get the
emergency exit. Sometimes the ride stops in the middle and we get to get off.
Sometimes we have to ride the whole thing.
And yes, sometimes the ride
is one of the best things to ever happen to us.
So, in this place of
waiting.
In this place of trusting.
In this place where my
prayer is a song lyric that goes “ Cast me gently into morning for the night
has been unkind.”
I grit my teeth, hold out my
hand and whisper:
“Pass me a glass."
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