I was thinking the other day as I made one of my favorite things in the world: Grape Kool-Aid. Since I was a kid, it has been my favorite Kool-Aid. I just couldn’t get enough of it. I even drank grape Shasta. It was grape that I loved the most. We had other flavors, but when I got to choose what was made, it was grape. One time I wondered what it would be like to taste the Kool-Aid right out of the packet. I remembered that day and thought about how life is sometimes. I think it is a little like Kool-Aid. OK now you’re thinking Toby shouldn’t have time to think that much. Life is like Kool-Aid, really? Let me explain.
Kool-Aid is made up of three things: Kool-Aid, sugar and water. I think they are pictures of what life is made up of. The day I thought I would try the Kool-Aid right out of the packet I was surprised. It was not good. In fact, it was horrible; very bitter. It tasted like grape but it was just bad. There was nothing sweet about it. Some days, weeks and months are that way. They are just sort of bitter and far from sweet. We would love to avoid these times, but we just can’t. You really have to have the Kool-Aid to make Kool-Aid. We may not want the bitter times, but they do add a flavor to our lives.
The next ingredient is sugar. Man there is nothing better than sugar; especially in Kool-Aid. It makes it drinkable. It adds some goodness to the drink. Without the sugar, no one would want the Kool-Aid. You can’t even really add sugar substitutes and get a good drink. The problem with sugar, though, is that if you have too much, it tends to rot things. I think if we have all sugar we end up rotten, also. All good times and we would not be worth knowing. Some good days are great but if that is all we had, we would just be too soft to be any good. You can’t have all sweet. I think that is just sugar water and not really all that tasty.
The third ingredient is water. You know the thing that adds volume makes the Kool-Aid drinkable. Though you could eat the Kool-Aid and sugar mix it just does nothing for your thirst. You need the water. Water’s just a clear and pretty uninviting mundane thing to add, but it makes Kool-Aid a drink. It represents the days we all have most of the time. No real excitement or sorrow to make the day stand out in our memory; just a good solid day of living. Those days are needed for our sanity; days where we catch our breath from the sorrow and remember the good times. Water is not much on its own, but try living without it for awhile and you will really miss what it adds to your life.
All three parts are needed for a good drink of Kool-Aid no matter what flavor you enjoy. Life is that way. We need sweet days, bitter days and plain days for a good life. Too much of one will make our life unlivable. So to quote Job, “Can we only expect good days from the Lord and not the bad? No matter what I will praise the Lord.” We have to learn to drink deeply from life and learn to accept all three days for what they add to our lives.