Salsa Thoughts.

I make salsa with my mom every fall.

When the weather gets windy and cold, when the warmth of the stove will feel good in the kitchen.

It's the afternoon,
and I'm home alone.
Just me and the dog and the cat and music and tomatoes.
Lots of tomatoes.

It's wonderful, though.

Washing, chopping,
slicing, blending,
pouring, stirring.

Just standing over the counter,
cutting open those tomatoes.
Most of them have bad spots.
Big ones, spreading like poison over them.
Some are small, but once I start to slice them away, I see how deep they go.
Sometimes the smallest blemish needs me to cut away more than half the tomato. Because the inside is so infested.

I cut them out.

Then they're like new.

That's what God does.
The pain of his cutting out those rotting, bursting darknesses in us
is worth the transformation in the end.

It's worth it.

So I stand, thinking
thinking so much that I can't even articulate
and hearing good music.

I've missed listening to Misty Edwards.
She is so honest.
She just speaks her heart to God.
It's good to hear that music, those words so saturated in the truth.
It's good to feel the truth seeping into me.

So I stand and chop, think, pray,
as the salsa begins to be made.