When life gives you bitter persimmons, make cookies!

My grandma's kitchen was a happy gathering place for me and my cousins. We would spend weekends with her and she was always making something good to eat. One day, I remember seeing bowl of beautiful reddish orange pieces of fruit on the kitchen table. So, with our mouths watering, my cousin and I took a big bite of that shiny delicious looking fruit. To our surprise, that piece of fruit sure did not taste as good as it looked! In fact, we puckered up so fast and made the ugliest faces. Grandma Andy walked into the kitchen and she laughed at the surprised looks on our faces as we bit into the most bitter and nasty tasting piece of fruit we had ever had. I asked what they were, Grandma said they were persimmons and she would be making cookies with them. With disgust on our faces we both knew what the other was thinking. NO WAY! I will not eat one single persimmon cookie!

Well, as they baked we were amazed that such a horrible piece of fruit could omit such a wonderful aroma! So, long story short, knowing Grandma would never give us a yucky cookie, we tasted them. We ate them faster than she could bake them! Wow! Grandma's hands could make anything taste good. Even something that taste so disgustingly bitter.

Sometimes, we can be just like that persimmon. We can be such bitter people that we make others pucker in disgust, with our negativity and glass half empty attitude.

Has something made you bitter? Has your bitterness caused your relationships with others to suffer? or maybe you have not even realized that is the case.

Give it all to God . . . your pain, resentment, anger, disappointments and whatever other feelings you've harbored that have made you bitter. Put yourself in his hands; let him work in your lives so that when others are around you, they will be drawn to God through the sweet aroma that will permeate from your life.

God's hand's can make anything good. He can turn your bitterness to JOY! And when life gives you bitter persimmons, make cookies!