Bitter Seeds

This summer Parker and I planted a garden. We grew tons of cucumbers and tomatoes. My mother-in-law taught me how to can pickles and Parker and I canned about 50 quarts of pickles. Just ask him and he will tell you he is a pickle canner. With the cooler weather, our tomatoes have slowed down, but I had about 15 on the counter that I wanted to do something with rather than throwing them out. Since it was so cool outside I decided to boil them and make some good homemade chili soup.....Sounds delicious doesn't it.....

So if you have ever done something like this, you may know that the seeds in the tomato make them very bitter tasting. That is why every educated person would take the seeds out prior to boiling them......After taking my first taste of the soup I immediately decided I was going to throw it out and just go to the store to buy stuff and make new.

When Sean came home for lunch and I said, "Hey, taste this soup, I made with the tomatoes from the garden." He tasted it and said it was good.....Now, every good husband knows that when your wife asks you to taste something you say it tastes good. (And I know Sean is always very hungry at lunch so he may have just been overly hungry and that is why it seemed to taste good). Regardless, I now felt guilty about throwing it out, so I spent all afternoon adding stuff until I thought it tasted edible. In case you want to know how to make bitter tasting tomatoes taste okay, just add some sugar and baking soda.....What would I do without the internet?



Since I spent Parker's whole afternoon nap making the soup edible, that was my only quiet time of the day. I thought a lot about bitter seeds....I was frustrated that the sweet tomatoes we had been eating all summer could taste this bad just because of the little seeds. And it made me think of my life and seeds of bitterness that I may be carrying around and how a few little seeds left to "boil" can cause the whole "batch" to taste terrible....and they don't just taste bad themselves, but make everything else you add to them taste terrible. I was convicted about a few things....

1. My first inclination was to throw out the entire pot of soup: not only is this wasteful, but it speaks volumes about how I deal with certain things in my life......not good.

2. God revealed certain attitudes, situations, and people that have been causing me to "boil" bitter seeds in my heart.

3. These bitter seeds, left to boil in my heart, will only make everything around me taste bitter and that is not okay!

How do you deal with bitter seeds in your life? Are you aware of any that are currently "boiling" and causing the everything else in your life to "taste" bitter? I encourage you to ask God to show you any bitter seeds and deal with them as He commands...

"Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.But let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you." Ephesians 4:30-32

After all, don't we just want a tasty bowl of homemade chili soup for supper anyway!