I love the notion captured in the saying, "turning lemons into
lemonade," because when I look at life's challenges from this
purposeful perspective, I'm often able to transform my experience
and ultimately the results.
For example, Ann and I recently were "unexpectedly blessed" with
a lot of extra stuff when one of the renters of a Purposeful
Property (our other business on purpose) moved out and left a
'bunch of junk' behind. Our intention with the business was to
help people 'turn houses into homes.' In this case, our tenant
seemed have turned it into a junkyard instead.
Now, it certainly didn't occur as a blessing at the start. The
lemon to lemonade process began by moving from 'what a bunch of
trash and junk,' to, 'wow, look at all these unexpected
blessings." (We had to haul over 2,000 pounds of trash and
damaged furniture to the dump.)
But among all the trash were some lemons worthy of being turned
into lemonade, mostly household items, toys, and children's
clothes which we hauled to our garage.
We're now in the process of finding new homes for these
"unexpected blessings," as well as someone who truly wants to
turn our two houses into their new home. (Interested? Find out
for HERE. ) We've taken of the items to a thrift store that supports
children and unwed mothers.
Perhaps the nicest 'lemonade' of all, recently we discovered FreeCycle
– a network to promote waste reduction andhelp save our landscape
from being taken over by landfills. We're having a great time connecting
our blessings with families who can benefit from our unexpected windfall.
Check it out to see if there's a freecycle network in your area:
