Listen HERE
It takes 100 days for popcorn to grow.
I planted the seeds in May. I watched the stalks grow throughout June and July. By August 25th, the yellow ears were ready to harvest.
My kids helped me take the kernels off about fifty of the cobs, and I couldn’t wait to fry them in some oil and watch them pop into fluffy, white popcorn.
The funny thing is that I don’t even like to eat popcorn, but I love watching it pop!
Imagine my sadness when my first batch of popcorn seeds burned up in the pan without even producing one satisfying pop. With just an irritating sizzle, the golden kernels turned black and mocked all 100 days of weeding, hoeing, and cultivating.
I did what all good gardeners do and googled the problem. My popcorn kernels had too much moisture in them. The article recommended that I wait ninety more days as they dried out.
Tick. Tick. Tick. Time passed by as I glared at the laundry baskets full of popcorn cobs in my laundry room. I wondered if the whole season would be a bust.
One chilly night in November, I was making supper and searching for a vegetable to put on the plates. I had to move the baskets of popcorn cobs to get to the freezer. It made me wonder: Can’t popcorn be considered a vegetable? Would it really pop this time?
I filled a pan with canola oil, turned up the heat, and dropped seven golden kernels in. The glass lid allowed me to take a front row seat, and I stripped the kernels from four of the cobs while I waited.
After about eight minutes, there was an explosion in the pan. One kernel burst into the most beautiful, photogenic piece of popcorn that ever adorned a movie theater menu.
I quickly added the other kernels to the pan while shouting and dancing with jubilation. I gently shook the pan as it filled with popcorn, as white as the falling snow. When my husband came in for supper, I was jumping and singing, and the pan was overflowing onto the stove burner. He helped me rescue the popcorn, and those four cobs filled a full-sized steam pan full of the vegetable du jour.
As I watched my family enjoy that beautiful popcorn, I knew that 200 days was not too long for cultivating joy.
At the Last Supper, in one of His most sorrowful hours, Jesus said, “These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full… Your sorrow will turn to joy…No one will take your joy from you.”
Jesus’s secret to joy was to “continue entrusting Himself to Him who judges justly” even during suffering.
It may be many difficult days in the making, but when we allow Jesus to grow gratitude in our hearts, it blossoms into contentment, and after many days, it will pop, exploding into joy that is nourishing, not just for ourselves, but for the whole body of Christ.
Now, who’s coming over to help us eat the rest of this popcorn??
Sarah Dixon Young 