Is life like a bowl of cherries?

By Ellen Shuck

"Life is Just a Bowl of Cherries," the name of a song, popular years ago. The music was by Ray Henderson and the lyrics by Lew Brown. Not knowing the phrase was the name of a song, I credited its wisdom to another source -- my mother.

Mom claimed a quote appropriate for every occasion. Sometimes Mom would sigh and say, "Life is certainly no bowl of cherries," and went on about her business.

Recently as I watched a television interview, the cliche was repeated by an election candidate's wife. The woman's husband had been through an abnormally difficult campaign. She was attempting to hold her head high and project a positive attitude. In the middle of the conversation, the words, "You know, 'Life isn't a bowl of cherries.' You have to take the bad with the good," came from the mouth of the candidate's wife.

Wow, what courage she exhibited, I thought! I could never have withstood the rejection and slanderous exposure the candidate suffered. Nevertheless, most successful people have survived many failures and much rejection. You refuse to give up when you hit a hard spot. Everything happens for a reason, and once you learn the lesson to be learned, you will pass on to another vicissitude, or level, according to James Allen in "As a Man Thinketh."

I felt there was so much depth to that saying, I wanted to learn what I could from it. You could pretend that "Life is like a bowl of cherries," or turn it into "Life is not a bowl of cherries." That fit best, I believed. Or, perhaps, it could be like a bowl of cherries if you considered that fresh cherries last only a short time. Like apples, bananas or other fruits and vegetables, there are both good and bad in that basket. Do you throw the bad fruit away and keep the good or do you ditch the whole basket? If you do the latter, you derive no enjoyment from the good fruit or vegetables. You're better off to keep the good, enjoy it and get rid of what's bad. You don't want the bad to spoil the good. Right?

I compared the cherry scenario with life. It could, indeed, be part of both. When everything is going well, life is like that bowl of good fruit. But when hard times come along, life can stink. It's rotten. Life seems spoiled, and you feel like throwing everything away that's gone wrong. You fail to learn the lessons the rotten times were meant to teach.

Those lessons have been in vain, so don't allow discouragement to mar the experiences from which you're supposed to learn. Instead, recognize that "all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose" (Romans 8:28).

In other words, enjoy and learn from the good, adopt its benefits and get rid of what has led to the bad. Search within each experience and see the hidden and illustrious diamonds both contain. Like an acorn, you must break the shell to derive the meat that life is made of. If you never make the effort to attempt and complete a difficult project, you will be a quitter. If you avoid all suffering, you'll never grow and learn life's most productive and enlightening lessons.

Cherries are delicious, but when you bite into even a tasty, fresh one, the seed within is hard. So, once again, you're forced to take the bad with the good and throw away what's useless. Unless you plant the seed and allow for new growth, you throw away what may be valuable. "A farmer who plants only a few seeds will get a small crop. But the one who plants generously will get a generous crop" (2 Corinthians 9:6). Keep on planting. Keep on learning and keep pressing on.