The Perfect Lemonade Recipe

I had an epiphany this morning at 4 am when my husband and I were awoken by our dogs barking. I have no clue what made me make this connection, but I felt compelled to share it with my readers and I would have done so at 4 am, except, frankly, that's absurd.

I was thinking about my whole saying, "When God gives you lemons, make lemonade," but what about when the lemons you get aren't perfect? When you think of making homemade lemonade, you picture beautiful, yellow lemons full of juice, perfect for a hot, summer day. But what if your lemons are small, bruised, not very juicy and a little hard? What do you do then?

No matter what, in our life, we can't always have perfect lemons for our lemonade. At the times that our lemons are perfect, it takes very little effort to make good lemonade. We take those lemons for granted. We don't think about the time in making the lemonade, because our ingredients made it so easy. We don't have to add much sugar or water or mix it for very long, because the lemons were awesome.

But with less than perfect lemons, it's harder to get perfect lemonade. You have to really squeeze the lemons to get out all of their juicy potential, then you have to add a lot of sugary love to your lemon juice. Next you have to pour in a lot of water, which represents your time, and you really have to stir it up, which represents your energy and patience. You may feel extremely exhausted when you are finished making the lemonade from your less than perfect lemons, but when you taste it, you realize that all of your love, time, patience and energy were worth it, because it's the best lemonade you ever made. You also realize it was never about the lemons or the end product, it was about the journey and the process of making it that you remember, and that is what really helps you appreciate just how perfect your imperfect lemons really were. You just didn't see it at the time.

My epiphany made me realize that to some, my lemons may have always seemed perfect, but they never really were. I just had to work extra hard with them. I've had to realize that, too. Nothing is ever truly perfect. A lot of times, we just have to keep working with what we have and we have to roll with it. Hope this helps you, too.