Pass the popcorn; this might take her a while. ;)

 

Popcorn is a major food group in my world.

I joke about having been reared on popcorn and red pop. It comes as no great surprise that my first job was working at a Karmelkorn shop in the mall.

After two years of popping corn and cooking caramel, I can still make a mean batch of caramel corn. The recipe is simple: brown sugar, butter, salt, vanilla, and Karo syrup.

Remains. After all the mixing, this is what's left of the caramel corn.

The tricky part is the timing.

If you cook it too long, the batch is dark, smoky, and tastes something like licking a sweetened boot sole. If you quick-trigger the cooking and don’t allow the sugar to fully process, the flavor is decent, but the batch's texture is grainy, chewy, and dangerous; it just might loosen a tooth.

Timing it right.

I’m an introvert and a self-proclaimed wordsmith. When conversing about deep-felt heart issues, I tend to pause, hesitate, stumble as I look for just the right word.

To me, communication is like making caramel corn. The first word that pops up doesn’t necessarily merit the thought and may lack digestible qualities; timing makes all the difference.

And so I am thankful for friends who know me and wait out my articulating stammers, who allow me to practice filling in the blanks, and who rejoice with me as I voice thought and exhale relief after having gotten it right.

Thankful: because sometimes I’m dark and smoky. 

Tireless friendships hold out for the me that God is making me to be, batch by imperfect batch.

“Congenial conversation—what a pleasure!
    The right word at the right time—beautiful!”

                                           Proverbs 15:23, MSG

 Lord Jesus, thank you for the promise that You are making all things new. What a blessing you have given us in friendships, and what a blessing it is to find the right word. Amen