Last night as I was finishing lesson preparations from the book of Ezra which deals with the adversity the Jews faced in rebuilding the temple even with the support of King Cyrus, I was reminded of a lesson from my youth where we were taught about lemons. As a second thought, I decided to include the same quote in my lesson...
It just so happens that I had lemons in the fridge so this morning I grabbed some sugar, a knife and my lemon and brought them to seminary. I printed the above photo on a sticky note for each of my students and I was set. What I didn't anticipate was the degree to which I would be taught by my students!
I displayed my lemon prominently at the front of the room all through the lesson without explanation. At the end of the lesson I showed the following saying about adversity...
I asked my class how God had watched over them in times of adversity or helped them in their challenges. One girl shared her feelings about the atonement, saying that she has found that she has to rely upon the enabling power of the Atonement of Christ to help her when she doesn't feel strong enough. I realized as she spoke, that it is the enabling power of the Atonement of Christ that is the sweet nectar that changes bitterness into sweetness, or lemons into lemonade.
After the lesson I provided the materials needed for each of my students to experience making lemonade from a real lemon. I provided each of them with a quarter of a lemon, ample amounts of sugar and of course water. They were not told how much to use, but were left on their own to make their lemonade. One student who had never made lemonade from a lemon before was so amazed at how good the drink was. She commented a couple of times on her discovery and expressed a desire to go home and make more after school.
I couldn't help but think how our adversity and challenges in life CAN become as sweet and amazing as her lemonade was to her. They never feel that way when we are in them, especially at the onset, but as we apply the sweetening nectar of the Atonement with its enabling and strengthening power in our lives, those trials become sweet and almost hallowed. We begin to see God's hand helping us and guiding us, strengthening and supporting us. And as we become aware of His great goodness we begin to understand that it was through our adversity that we were turned to Him and the sweetness and joy of His blessings begin to abound... even if the adversity persists. I KNOW because I have had some very hard challenges in my life, and yet, those things have become sacred to me because of what they have helped me become, and because of the awareness they instilled in me of the love of my God for me. There is great joy in the process of refinement, even though it is hard. To draw closer to God rather than away from Him in our adversities yields blessings untold.
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