wont_jell

When Things Won’t Jell, by Gini Kittle

My daughter and I have taken up the hobby of canning together. We have found so much joy in preserving our fresh garden vegetables and fruits! For those of you who can, you’ll understand what I mean when I say we get a thrill every time we hear the “pop” from our jars indicating they have sealed properly.

I was disappointed however, when last week we tried making watermelon jelly. You’re probably thinking like I was at the time, “Who has ever heard of watermelon jelly?” but Anna thought the recipe looked simple enough for us beginners. After following the recipe to the best of our ability, the syrup did not thicken up like it was suppose to. We ended up with four jars of watermelon goo!

After doing a little research we discovered something went awry with our pectin, the ingredient that is suppose to thicken it up. Other cooks, when faced with that dilemma, simply use their concoction as pancake syrup or ice cream topping. That’s what we had planned to do too, until we tasted it. It was so awful tasting, like bad cough medicine, so we threw it out!

Sometimes things in our lives don’t work out as we have planned. Occasionally God doesn’t redeem a botched situation the way we would have liked Him to. That’s okay. Remember, God is God — He is sovereign. He is trustworthy and faithful. He is a God who eventually will cause all that’s happened to work out for our good. God loves to restore and reconcile … even when we find ourselves in a “bad jam.”