CUKES

Ever noticed how God tends to bless you abundantly with one particular thing in a given season of your life? It's like there are themes to life, and they last a while - until you've learned what you are supposed to learn from them; or perhaps you've enjoyed them long enough; or perhaps until you've overcome them.

My theme this summer is cucumbers. The garden is brimming with them, and at least twice each week I install another "fence" of sorts - something for them to climb on besides my peppers and tomatoes. The bright yellow flowers are sublime. They are so happy, so abundant, so prophetic, so prolific. I think to myself, "what am I going to do with all the coming cucumbers"? Make pickles, that's what. Lots of pickles.

Pickling is a lost art. It is something my great-grandmother did, and my grandmother did, and my mom learned, and now I carry on doing. It connects one with the most basic elements of life - food, preservative, and cleanliness. "To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven". I will always remember summer as a time for pickling. We are putting away food for winter, for long storage, for the future, for sharing. Pickling is a way of reaping the harvest and saving it, sharing it, storing it, and experiencing it anew much later in time.

Did I mention that the pickles taste divine? They are NOTHING like the dyed-yellow, chloride-infested noodley things on the grocery store shelf. They are crisp, and crunchy, and tast of fresh dill and garlic and GARDEN. They are a reminder of days past, and days present, and days future. "To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven."

When I was a girl, we used to visit these friends of my parents. It was the kind of relationship in which I called my mother's friend my Aunt. Well, my Aunt Mae made the best dill pickles I had ever tasted. When we went over to her house, I would secretly hope and pray that she'd pull out one of those precious jars and open it, offering her homemade pickles for us to enjoy. The jar was soon empty, and a smile grew in my heart. I needed nothing more than those pickles to have a simply wonderful time at Aunt Mae's house. They were tasty, and crunchy, and reminiscent, and timeless, and special. Now I am making them, and watching my kids' faces as they bite into the real deal. It's a generational thing. "To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven." Thank you, God, for the cucumbers. I'll do my best to share and preserve them wisely. They are special, and wondrous, and delicious, and abundant - just like the rest of your blessings.