I Hate Peaches

I made the comment on Facebook today that if God disciplines those He loves...I'm very loved right now.

It's been an ouch-y sort of day here in Bekah-land. All well deserved. All painful just the same.

I do love a good object lesson though, and one came to mind tonight while I was out on my walk. (I have never loved exercise more than in this desert. It's one of the three places I can hear God best.)

You should know that I hate peaches. It's kind of a texture thing, but really it's more of a flavor thing. If I'm out somewhere and someone serves me peaches, I'll eat them, because I'm just polite that way, but I hate the things. And when I was a kid...I guess I didn't realize I hated them because we didn't really have them all that often. I was probably five or so when this event occurred. Mom served fresh peaches with lunch one day. All sliced up in a nice little bowl. Being the good fatty mcfatterson child that I was, I cleaned up my entire plate. I tried the peaches. I hated them. I declared the meal done.

Mom, unaware of my perhaps recently acquired hate of peaches, declared me NOT done with my lunch. I could be done when the peaches were gone.

Oh the battle of the wills that ensued. (And you ain't seen no battle of the wills til you've seen Freelan women go head to head.) Looking back, from the vantage point of adulthood, I see the sheer brilliance in her plan. She was the mother, I was the child. She called the shots, they were mine to obey. BRILLIANT. Why don't more parents employ that today?

But I was five. What did I know of the brilliance of parenthood? So I set my jaw and said I would NOT eat them.

OOH.

Wrong move.

Mom calmly agreed and I was dismissed for an afternoon of play. When dinnertime arrived, Mom and Dad sat down to something delicious, and I sat down to...a bowl of peaches minus the one I ate at lunch. WHAT!?!?

Sheer brilliance, I tell you.

I was informed that I would see that bowl of peaches at every meal until it was gone. And once it was gone, I could eat whatever else was on the menu. I choked down those stupid peaches, crying with every bite. (I roll my eyes even THINKING about it now.)

Mom has never served me peaches since.

The point was...that day, that was my task. And until I completed it, it stared at me.

God brought back the lesson of the peaches today because He's asked something of me. Something I'm not fond of. At all. It's hard, and I don't like it. And He said to me, "Bekah, until you do this, you can't move on. We work on nothing else and we enjoy nothing of what's to come until this is accomplished. So if you're interested in moving ahead, you would do well to submit to this lesson."

Gulp.