Are you being sugared off?

As I drove past a local college last week, I noticed that they had tapped the stately maples that lined the campus, the old-fashioned metal buckets hugging the large, gray tree trunks. Were one of the science classes running experiments, I wondered, or were culinary students preparing to take part in one of our long-standing traditions of maple sugaring, since the season was now upon us?

I was reminded of a post I wrote last year, and I wanted to share it with you.

We have seasons in our lives of joy, sorrow, of challenge and triumph.

Often, they are intermingled, but there are times when a particularly difficult one seems to last for so very long.

In the midst of these trials, we may not be able to see the good that will result.

But later, through the gift of time and perspective, we are able to see how we were transformed for the good.

As we move towards the early days of spring here in New Hampshire, the wintry nights are mirrored by warm days, and maple syrup season begins.

I do feel sorry for you if you have never stood in a sugar shack and experienced the heat of the roaring wood stove while being enveloped in the warm steam that carries that trademark sweet maple-y scent.  In the short version of this event, the maple trees are tapped with spigots or tubing, and the sap-which runs only at this time of year-is gathered and poured into a large vat back at the shack. It is carefully tended and stirred over a hot fire until everything that is not syrup is boiled and filtered away.

This process is called sugaring off, and the result is an amazing transformation of something that looks pretty ordinary into sweet, translucent, golden shimmering spoonfuls of lip-smacking goodness.

I think there are times we have a lot in common with the sap. Somehow, as we go through life, who we are sometimes gets watered down, and picks up debris, such as fear, anger, resentment, greed, jealousy, and pride. All of this dilutes and negatively flavors not only our nature but also that of our relationships. There comes a point, I imagine, when God takes his measure of us, and determines that it is our time-again-to be sugared off.

He lights the fire, and we feel the heat.

More often than I would like to admit, I think most of us resent the high temperatures and pain of this process, and desire to just continue floundering along on our own not so merry way. However, despite how we may feel, once we are “done”, well, at least for this time, we realize we are better for it. We are sweeter, and more like the person He designed us to be.

We are well served to welcome our season, whenever and how often it occurs, and open our arms to the delicious results of being sugared off.

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Image Credit-Doug Cadmus