When Life Gives You Lemons, Make Fudge: The sour made sweet, one ingredient at a time.

By Leisha Smith

Jesus said in this life, we will have troubles but to take heart because He has overcome the world. I translate this to myself and say, "In this life, I will have lemons to deal with but I can take heart because Jesus is the sweetener needed to make fudge out of lemon juice!
"When Life Gives You Lemons, Make Fudge" is not about downplaying tough times; "When Life Gives You Lemons, Make Fudge" is meant to help you make it through the tough times one "sweet ingredient" at a time with a bible verse, a prayer, a song, just one ingredient at a time.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Apr 2, 2021
• ISBN: 9781098354923

Book preview

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Copyright © 2021 Leisha Smith

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

ISBN (Print): 978-1-09835-491-6

ISBN (eBook): 978-1-09835-492-3

This book is dedicated to my Savior, Jesus Christ, and His Amazing Grace, then to my husband of 37 years and counting, Gene, my best friend and coffee pot. To my sons, Jason and Anthony, their wives, Brittney and Lisa, my grandchildren, Arianna, Jaxon, Aiden, and Lydia, and to my amazing daughter, Maddie, I love you all for always always. And to my son Nick, who taught me when life gives you sour lemons, make sweet fudge. Son, rest with Jesus and I will see you again soon.

To my dad and mom, my family, and many friends who have put up with me and encouraged me, thank you. To my mentor and sweet sister, Sherry Disney, I am so thankful for you. To my cousin Debbie, I love you always always.

A very special Thank You to my RBF (Regular Best Friend) of 30 years and counting, Kim Whaley, who loves me uglies and all.

To the Samples Memorial Baptist Church Ladies Retreat Planners: Every year I worked with you was amazing and thank you for helping me do what God wanted me to do; I love you all!

A special piece of fudge for Darlene Calhoun, who followed the leadership of the Holy Spirit and asked me to teach a women’s devotion with the theme, When Life Gives You Lemons. Colossians 2:6.

Contents

Epilogue . . . Yes, I said Epilogue

Chapter 1 — For I Have Learned Philippians 4

Chapter 2 — Meanwhile Genesis 37:18

Chapter 3 — Whatever John 16

Chapter 4 — Vanilla Extract and Home

But wait! There’s more . . .

Epilogue . . . Yes, I said Epilogue

Yes, this is the epilogue of the book, not the introduction or foreword as is the case with other books. As soon as I told my RBF (Regular Best Friend, Kim Whaley) the epilogue was going to be first, she said, I expected no less from you, because Kim knows. I felt led to begin with the end because I am that one that reads the last chapter first, loves spoiler alerts and cliff notes. So, let me begin with the ending.

I am so thankful, although at times I have the most pathetic way of showing gratitude, but I really am so very thankful God loved me first, knitted me together, and planned my days. So many times, I couldn’t see the end results when life gave me a lemon, but God saw them because He predestined them. At times, my life felt like a metronome, keeping a smooth methodic rhythm, then the pendulum would suddenly break off and, in an instant, a bitter, sour, and harsh incident would knock my life out of rhythm. However, God had a recipe for my life’s lemons and when I followed the recipe, life was great. However comma—at times, I would freelance, I would substitute ingredients, thinking I could do life my way and help God with the little lemons but what a mistake that was every time!

Right now, my desire is to live in the shadow of my Savior, sit in the parlor with the Holy Spirit who lives in me, hold God’s big, safe hand, and follow His recipe. I have a saying, well I have many sayings, but this is one of my newer ones: I will finish a winner because I am a blood-bought, adopted daughter of God but until I reach the finish line, I will not quit! I will falter and fail, but I will not quit!

Thank you for wanting to read my book. My prayer for you is that you find God’s recipe for any lemons you are dealing with and that you realize when life gives you lemons, all is not lost. When things get sour, I pray you learn to pause, ponder, and pour out the juice of that lemon on the altar of God, then follow God’s recipe: to the lemon juice of life, add the sugar of Scripture, the water of Life, some chilling Truth from the Comforter, and wait while God stirs the mixture with His Glory and that sour lemon will soon become a pan of sweet, creamy, delicious fudge! Glory to God and amen! I love you always always, Leisha Smith.

CHAPTER ONE

For I Have Learned Philippians 4

Here’s a familiar saying, When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. The statement suggests when you experience a sour, bitter, and less than desirable life event, just turn the sour into sweet. Cute, direct, and simple, right? If only.

If I gave you a lemon, only one lemon, could you make lemonade? With only a lemon, one or twenty lemons, you will only have lemon juice. Other key ingredients are necessary to take a lemon and make lemonade, mainly sugar, and water. You must squeeze the lemons to extract the juice, add water and sugar to your desired sweetness, and stir vigorously to make lemonade. Finally, a nice tall glass of ice to pour the lemonade over results in a cool, refreshing treat on a hot summer day!

So, a lemon alone cannot make lemonade, but you also can’t enjoy lemonade without lemons! All this is a figure of speech for when life isn’t as sweet as you desire, when life goes sour on you. How can you turn the sour into something sweet? Well, it’s not as simple as the saying makes it sound. I don’t say this out of need, for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am Philippians 4:11. Understanding the meanings of the words learned and content helps gain a better understanding of how to learn to be content in whatever circumstances I am in. Content is an adjective that means in a state of peaceful happiness, as a verb, it means satisfy, and as a noun, it means a state of satisfaction. Learned is from the Greek language and means to learn, be appraised, to increase one’s knowledge, to be increased in knowledge, to hear, to be informed, to learn by use, and practice to be in the habit of, accustomed to. So, if I take those definitions and create a Leisha sentence from the above verse, it may be worded something like this: I am not saying this because I need something, because I don’t. Every day of my life has taught me a lesson, and I made it a practice to be satisfied with the lesson God had for me that day.

If you are a child of God, I have an important message for you: The God of all creation, the One who spoke all things into existence, the source of all beauty, power, and wisdom is planning on making a Godly person out of you and me, and part of that process involves DISTRESS. You can either cooperate in the process or resist it. Frankly, those are your only two options. Distress can make you bitter, angry, resentful, fearful, and unable to enjoy your life. It all comes down to a trust issue. It’s a worn-out statement but it’s true: when life is good, trusting God is easy but when things go off the rails, often trust goes off the rails too. Here are some examples of the sweet and easy ways you trusted in God, when you had a spouse and when you had a job. You trusted God when you had your health, had money in the bank, you first got married, when everything was going well; it was so easy to trust God. But can you trust God after your spouse leaves you, after you lose your job, when your health gets a life-threatening diagnosis, when the money in the bank is spent, when the tough years left your marriage sour, when the sunshine turned to rain, can you still TRUST GOD? What do you do with the lemons?

God forces us to reexamine HIS character when we are in pain. I want to focus on Joseph, son of Rachel and Jacob. Joseph is mentioned first in Genesis 30:22 when he was born, and his name means he adds. Then he isn’t mentioned again until Genesis chapter 37 and he is now 17 years old. He is a tattletale, loved more by his father than his other brothers, has a very special coat, has prophetic dreams that are not favorable to his family and so his brothers