Fruits of Labor

“And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” 1 Corinthians 13:13

Beauty is in row after row of gleaming glass jars filled with the ruby-red jam. Summer in a bottle. Captured for another day, another season. Canning is old fashioned. It has gone by the way-side as it is not an easy task. It takes time. It is more expensive than just grabbing a pre-packaged product off the grocery store shelves. But, isn’t the end product sometimes worth the expense? Sometimes worth the effort? There is nothing that tastes like fresh, homemade jam. It cannot be duplicated.

Every couple of years I put up around twenty pints of raspberry jam. By “put up”, I mean I prepare berries and transform them into jam, ladling it into glass jars. I top the jars with a lid and ring and process them in a boiling hot water bath until the lid vacuum-seals to the jar. Then I have fresh, homemade jam for the next year or so.

The process is lengthy but simple. In a way it is cathartic. There is something satisfying about taking raw ingredients: berries, sugar, pectin and mixing them, mashing and cooking into a oozing red slurry poured into hot glass jars. Boiling lids that scorch fingertips. Lowering a batch of jars into the boiling bath. The heat of the water activating the science of preservation. Clamping out the finished product to rest, nestled in a thick towel. The tell-tale “tink” of the seal taking hold.

Three ingredients and a process… The amazing simplicity behind canning jam. Leave out an ingredient and you get different results. If raspberries were mixed with only sugar, it would just be macerated fruit. Raspberries with pectin? Pretty much Jell-O. And mixing pectin with sugar, I’m not quite sure what you get, but it wouldn't be very appetizing and it couldn’t be spread on toast. Three very specific ingredients are needed to create jam. And it requires a process. Jam could be achieved without being processed in the water-bath, but it would be unstable. It wouldn’t last. It could only exist in small batches and would eventually go rancid and have to be thrown out.

With the process comes the longevity. With the process comes the ability to withstand the storage and the waiting. Without the process, the three ingredients will eventually suffer. Isn’t this true of us? What are the elemental ingredients for a joy-filled life? I would argue (as does the Bible): faith, hope and love. Faith for conviction and direction. Hope for times of uncertainty and trial. And love for everything in between. Standing alone, however, faith, hope and love are pretty vulnerable and easily shaken. Mixed together, they create a strength of character and a confidence of self. This is tangible but frail. Add the last step. Process. When your faith, hope and love are put through the processes of life: friendships, career, relocation, marriage, death, parenting, religion, disappointment, learning, finances, elation, health, family,… the mixture begins to set. That’s when the magic happens; longevity, staying power, stick-to-it-tiveness.

Our lives can be a beautiful slurry of faith, hope and love. It can glisten in gleaming glass jars and stand up to the rigors of time. It just takes patience and confidence to wait for the final product. It takes time. It takes courage, but the result is worth it when you crack open the seal and savor the fruits of your labor.