Life Is Like a Box of Chocolates

Forrest Gump made a valid point and it was a good movie, but I had my own revelation this morning.

(We interrupt this blog to share a startling truth. The author wrote the title for this post and the first line, which you just read. She then went to the kitchen to eat breakfast, opened the Parade magazine, and the very first line her eyes happened upon was, "Is anything special planned for Forrest Gump's 20th anniversary?" Today, July 6, is the 20th anniversary of the film! And, without knowing that fact, the author chose this very day to make a comment about Forrest Gump? That is so strange and weird and crazy. Not that it matters or means anything, but still.... We now return you to the blog.)

Forrest Gump made a valid point and it was a good movie, but I had my own revelation this morning: Life Is Like Picking Raspberries. Actually, my first thought was Bible study is like picking raspberries. Then I expanded the idea to maybe all study is like picking raspberries. And finally, voila! LIFE is like picking raspberries!

Here's how picking raspberries works. You have an empty container in hand and methodically head in one direction around and through the patch, picking every berry in sight. Perfect! You now have quite a few raspberries in your bowl.

When you turn around, congratulating yourself on a job well done, you are amazed to see some berries hanging right there in front of your eyes. "How did I miss these beauties?" So you retrace your steps, now going in the opposite direction, and you find almost as many berries as you picked on your first pass. Ahh. Life is good.

You could go home now, but if you want to make sure you get all the berries, you have to make one more trip around. This time you'll look underneath the leaves, squatting down for a new point of view and lifting up individual branches to discover more hidden berries. Yum!

No more berries here, right?

Wrong! These were hiding under the leaves.

To get the most berries, this same routine has to be repeated at least every other day. Yes, it's time consuming, but if you like raspberries nearly as much as I do, you'll find it's totally worth the effort.

Who knew there could be so many more raspberries than I gathered on my first trip through the patch? Who knew that every day (or every other day), there is more wisdom and beauty to be discovered? Who knew that every year can reveal so much more than I first understood or imagined?

Life is like a box of chocolates. Life is like picking raspberries. I think I have discovered the ideal: Pick raspberries, then sit down and enjoy them with a box of chocolates. Or, like I did the other day, make a fresh raspberry pie in a chocolate-coated crumb crust.

 

Ahh. Life is good!