Cherries are in season and fresh cherries are on my brain. I think I have eaten so many that I have gone fruitloopy. Now I am thinking that life is like a bowl of cherries; sometimes it is the pits, sometimes it sweet, sometimes fresh and in season and sometimes frozen from the freezer. It is just life after all. It comes with the variety and adventure of not only eating in the season but living in season.
The beauty of being chronically ill for many years is that our perspective changes. We get to choose whether it changes for the good or the bad.
In attempts to find good, I have stared into my bowls of cherries the last couple weeks. As they are in season I have been eating a lot of fresh ones and freezing the rest. My mind has gotten lost in thinking about “life is like a bowl of cherries.” I don’t know where the saying came from but it makes sense.
First, we have to remove the pits. Life comes with things that are “the pits.” We don’t want to be in the situations, we feel like we are in the pits, we are miserable. But it is those pits that are required to move us to a different spot. The pits are necessary to plant elsewhere to grow a new tree.
Second, we have to look at the inside of the cherry to make sure there aren’t any invaders like worms before we plop them into our mouths. We simply have to learn to slow down and look at our lives too. We have to examine the realities of our lives and get our heads out from under the sand. We have to look for invaders who are disrupting our peace and wellbeing.
Third, we get to enjoy the sweetness of the fresh berry. There truly is sweetness in life and in people but sometimes we have to walk through the pits and the examination longer than we desire.
Fourth, we get to freeze what we cannot eat during the season of fresh cherries. Well, I don’t know about you but I truly could eat any amount of fresh cherries placed in front of me. Yet during chronic illness, I have had to learn more about balance. My life has desperately needed more balance. I have had to learn to set some cherries aside some in the freezer so I don’t overdo it.
Fifth, we get to enjoy the seasons that nature provides. Right now it is
How Do You Look At Chronic Illness
What if we looked at chronic illness as a season in our lives? It too shall pass, one way or another, it truly will.
Illness does not have to define us. We are still people with dreams and desires and great abilities. We are NOT a disease or a label. To walk out of chronic illness we have to accept and deal with the pits along with the sweetness that brings joy and nourishment.
It is all in how we choose to look at the situation. Do we see our bowl of cherries half full or half empty? Do we have an attitude of hope?
My desire is that anyone with chronic illness can see through the eyes of hope. I clearly remember the struggles to hang on through the worse of it. I remember the seasons of seeing more pits than sweetness.
Our perspective does change as we grow from the illness journey instead of being destroyed by it.
Grab a bowl of fresh cherries and see what you can discover.
