Mercy is Like Maple Syrup

Its the time of year again where people from near and far gather up the sap from the maple trees and make the good old fashioned Liquid Gold that tastes so sweet!  Maple syrup!  We had made maple syrup for years and loved the process.  This year was not a good year in TN for maple syrup but I often reflect on the years that we gathered the sap this same time of year and it brings of flood of warm family memories as well as truths that I can draw right from my soul.

​Mercy is much like Maple syrup in that it takes time to produce it. All our prayers are like the taps in the trees. They draw the sweet loving mercy up from the heart of God. It flows so fully and each drop of this mercy is pure as water.

The sweetness is weak yet, and you barely can imagine it turning into something worthy of use. The drops turn into bucket fulls.

The cold snow is unfriendly as you toil to gather each bucket. Sometimes you slip and fall, and buckets are dumped.

You become discouraged.

The work in finding each bucket and even more so the endurance it takes to climb the cliffs to gather it, makes each drop more precious than gold. And as each bucket is poured out, they add up to swells.

The heating refines that mercy. The fires are hot and they burn. The time of boiling feels so impossible as it takes so long to see any changes. Sometimes you stare at the fire and see only danger– you see only the flames. But above the flames, above the smoke that clouds the eyes, is the refined mercy.

The finishing touches of an Almighty God who knows all things, and makes all things possible. He turns something weak, into something rich and strong.

A substance worth a high price.
​And that mercy overflows and makes life so much sweeter.

​”Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might shew forth all longsuffering, for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting.”
~1 Timothy 1:16