The Pomegranate Within

By now most of my friends know I'm ga-ga over pomegranates. I could go on and on about the nutritional benefits, the beauty of the fruit, the biblical references, and even where the best deals are in my town. I'll spare you.

Most would choose a fruit that looks like these. Symmetrical, shiny, firm, heavy for it's size, and of course, the POM Wonderful brand, which IMHO, is the only real pom there is in existence. No, POM didn't pay me to say that. But I did win a free bottle of juice in their Twitter contest last week. That alone is enough to be on the Twitter bus. And I didn't even sleep in a Holiday Inn Express. 

I got these a week or so ago. (The pom is the fruit on the left, for those of you who are produce-challenged). 

At the store Thursday night I saw the most shabby, pathetic bin of POMs I've ever laid eyes on. They were shriveled, had lost all roundness, were peppered with sunken, dark spots, and the rind was thin and hard. There was nothing pretty or appealing about them, other than I knew they had probably once looked more beautiful. Some of them were actually cracked open. I was, as usual, drawn to the bin. I looked them over, and thought that if I just bought one, I wouldn't be out that much, there might be some decent arils deep into the fruit, and could have my pom fix for the day. Sucker, I know.

What a blessing that pitiful thing turned out to be! It was one of the most delicious, sweet poms I'd ever enjoyed, As I cut through the rind, a few squirts from the deep ruby-red arils greeted me. The juice was so dark, it was almost purple. There were maybe 10 bad arils in the entire fruit. Legend has it there are exactly 840 of them in every fruit. It was nearly perfect.

If one can have a spiritual, out-of-body experience eating a fruit, then I did. Or the crazies had struck. I'm going with the former.

Surely this is how God sees us. To others (and sometimes ourselves), we're cracked, bruised, thin-skinned, and not so pretty. To Him, we are perfect, from the inside out. Fearfully and wonderfully made. And He longs for us to burst forth with the joy he has put deep inside of us, putting aside all the the things on the outside that cover us, haunt us, and keep us from living the life He designed us to live.

I just knew that pomegranate was destined for bigger things than the broken-down produce bin at Walmart. 

So am I. 

Tea tonight: Green with lemongrass