The Sauce

Wednesday is becoming my favorite day. No obligations. No jam-packed schedule. A drop off, a lunch, and a pick up. Today is Wednesday AND October 1^st, so I get two of my favorites all in one! I love October, don’t you? Fall leaves, crisp air, football, apple picking and all the good things that come from those apples. Today was the perfect combination of Wednesday and October: a few friends and some sauce. Applesauce. Homemade applesauce. Preserved for future consumption.

Nothing profound happened today. A few ladies learned the very basics of preparing and canning applesauce. Others played with kids and made new friends. There was laughter, tears, near-misses with the knife. Just life. But it’s a really great life.  

Lately I’ve been reading a wonderful book titled The Lost Loves of World War II Collection: Three Novels of Mysteries Unsolved Since World War II by Bruce Judish and Sharon Bernash Smith. Envisioning the unimaginable horrors of life in Nazi Germany during the cold war and world war II has me feeling all the feels. Fear, sadness, terror, sympathy, anger and joy. I’m feeling all those feels about the lives so profoundly affected. I’m also feeling the feels of pure, sheer joy at the life God has blessed me with. 

So while we chop, crush, spill, grind and pour the goodness of the apples that are bountiful and beautiful I think about how blessed I am to be able to open my doors to any friend I want. Any person I want to welcome into my home can enter it and feel safe, secure and loved. We can talk about faith, religion, politics, husbands, dogs, kids, potty-training and breast-feeding. You name it, we can talk about it. And it’s safe. Always safe. Safe from judgement, ridicule, condescendence, and the like. Full of love, care, joy, emathy, sympathy and more love. This beautiful, joyous life is so great because of friends. 

Life gets messy, just like the apples boiling in the pot, splattering their juicy goodness all over the walls. But the end result is so worth the mess to get to that goodness you can’t get anywhere else.

 We are your God-loving friends and we’re here for you, sister! So splatter your “sauce” all over us. We  wash. We want to be here for you and get you to the other side of whatever mountain you find yourself facing. We want to learn the lessons right along with you and to help clean that sauce up. That’s what friends are for. 

That’s the sauce of life.