Fill Up on Sweets

The little sugar canister warmed my heart, not only because it was a thoughtful gift, but because it brought to mind a memory. I used to have a similar container in my kitchen. One day, I found my five-year-old granddaughter eating from it with her fingers. “Oh, honey,” I said, “Don’t eat sugar like that.”

She listened. A while later, I found her sucking sugar through a straw.

It turns out she was onto something. We were created to enjoy sugar. Lots of it.

Not the white stuff that comes in a bag from the grocery store, but the true sweetness that is found in Christ. He lived, died, and rose again to change the bitterness of death to the sweetness of life.  We’re invited to feast on that truth. To get our fingers and hearts sticky. To plunge a straw in and savor every word that comes from his mouth. (Deuteronomy 8:3)

But I forget to indulge the way I was meant to. 

Instead, I fill myself with the sour stuff the world serves up. 

On Good Friday, 2020, I was reminded of what is truly sweet. In the bitterness of a pandemic, I discovered sugar in the memory of a story I heard growing up about my great aunt, Cinda. (You can read that story here.) While the world was on lockdown, I had time to meditate on how she tasted the sweetness of eternity during a pandemic over 100 years ago. 

Since then, I’ve learned more about Cinda’s life on earth. It began closer to happily-ever-after than most, but she seems to have spent her short years with her fingers in the sugar bowl. I can tell because she left fingerprints all around. In a tribute to her, a friend wrote, “Cinda was a sweet, loving girl and all who knew her best, loved her best. She had a kind word and loving smile for all.”

I have a story Cinda wrote when she was 13. Its simple goodness reveals her heart and makes me smile. I’ve included it at the end of this post. 

But Cinda’s world, like ours, was often bitter. A year after she penned her story, her mother died. The same year, WWI began. And then came the Spanish Flu. 

Cinda seems to have dealt with these sour circumstances with her straw in the sugar.  A newspaper clipping contains these words about her… “the memory of her deeds and many acts of kindness and devotion will live long…” 

They have. Over 100 years later, her life inspires me to savor what truly satisfies. To help me remember, I’m going to keep my new canister handy and fill it with the truly good stuff—  words of the One I was created to crave, and reminders of the sweetness he pours into my days.

I’ll slip in a copy of Cinda’s story.

And a straw.

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The Sweet Word of our Creator …

…and words from one of his sweet creations…