Are you like a pumpkin?

Over a week ago, my friends and I gathered for what we called “Fall Festivities.” We brought potluck dinner and I helped decorate the table with an appropriate theme!

One friend brought all the pumpkins (well, squash, anyway) and after dinner, the carving commenced! We are quite an international group, so we Americans tried to explain to those from Australia, Italy, Brazil, Ethiopia, how we traditionally celebrate Halloween in the US. We shared some of our favorite costumes (mine was a bag of jellybeans, which I made from a clear dry cleaning bag stuffed with inflated colorful water balloons) and reminisced about favorite candy. 

I made vegan caramel apples (remarkably easy and delicious recipe here!) and apple cider for everyone. (Later at home I also made my first ever batch of apple butter from the leftover pulp—yum!)

 After that evening, I came across this lovely analogy of carving pumpkins to God’s work of sanctification in our lives:

• God picks you from the patch and brings you in (John 15:16),

• Then He washes all the dirt off of you (2 Corinthians 5:17),

• He opens you up and scoops out all the yucky stuff, removing the seeds of doubt, hate, greed, etc (Romans 6:6),

• Then He carves you a new smiling face (Psalm 71:23),

• And He puts His light inside you to shine for all the world to see (Matthew 5:16).