The Peaches Story

It's mid-July. And you know what that means: it means peaches. Can I say that louder?

Peaches, people.

Peaches.

Peaches are amazing because they are the juiciest, most delicious, succulent, amazing fruit that God created. Bananas? No comparison. Apples? Garbage. (Okay, apples aren't garbage, I'm just trying to make a point). Grapes? They're like deer droppings in comparison with peaches. (No exaggeration.) 

There is nothing like catching the juice of a dripping, delicious peach on your napkin and wishing you could have saved it from compost-misery but here you are, catching the next drip, eating your peach.

The Caterpillar likes peaches, too. I mean, she likes them. She doesn't love them like her mama loves them. They're acceptable and no more.

So I'm sure you could understand that when the last juicy peach emerged from the tip of the fruit bowl with only hours to expiry and me staring it down, that I had no intention of sharing this delicious piece of heaven with someone who only "likes" it. 

It was not for The Caterpillar. It was for me.

And it was go time.

I popped The Caterpillar in her high chair. She would have no need for constant attention if I could just grab 45 seconds of alone time with myself and this peach. I peeled her a banana. I walked away. I washed my peach.

And so, there she was, sitting in her high chair, enjoying her own fruit while I hovered over the kitchen sink eating the Best Peach To Emerge From The Grounds of Ontario when I realized that this was seriously, quite literally, the best peach I had ever begun to eat.

There was truly no comparison. This was THE best peach ever. It was perfectly ripe, hard on the outside, with such soft innards, no stringy bits; all fruit, all flesh. And as I peeked over through the corner of my eye, I saw a little sixteen month old who would know no difference between The Best Peach Ever and her yellow banana fruit.

But I would. And I had to share it.

Despite my best efforts to the contrary, I wanted my daughter to experience the world's best peach before it was too late. Only halfway through, there was much left to give, and as she wrinkled her nose and did her little Caterpillar smile, I pulled out a plate and a knife and began to cube the fruit.

The peach that was so specifically, strategically intended to be all mine... was now ours. For no other reason than the fact that I love my daughter so much that I want her to have the absolute, number one best peach in the entire world. I want her to have the best everything. 

And it hit me: this is the kind of love that God has for us. (Except for the part where he wants to selfishly eat the Peach alone... I don't think that's anywhere in the bible.) God wants the life for us where we get to eat the peach for no other reason than that he wants to bless us. He wants to give us the good and precious and delicious things, and I can count so many times - especially recently - in my life where I have pushed away the Good and pushed away the Precious or the Succulent because I've convinced myself that I don't deserve it. 

I'm not accepting the Beautiful Peach and instead I'm eating my No-Comparison Banana. And the sad part is that when I do this, I don't even realize what amazingness I'm missing out on. I don't accept or receive the full blessing and it hurts God in the same way that it would hurt me if The Caterpillar were to turn away my lovingly cubed peach. (In reality however, she devoured it and then asked for a cracker. 'Cause she's a toddler.) 

And I want to change that. I want to accept the Peach. Right now in my life, the Peach is our new house: it's "too big", "too new" and "too beautiful" for me - so much so that I haven't just accepted the fact that it's ours and just lived in it. 

So there you go. I'm trying to eat the Peach. Please pray with me that I can learn to just accept and enjoy the blessings I have, while I have them. And I hope you can accept your blessings, too.