A Lesson from “Green Goodness”

If you know anything about me, you know I LOVE avocados! But who couldn’t fall in love with this tasty, wholesome fruit? There are SO many ways to eat the green-goodness:

– Smoothies

– Salads

– Replacement for butter

– Freshly Chopped up in Tomato-Based Dishes (or ANY leftovers!)

– Guacamole!

And the health benefits? Let’s just name a few:

– Half an avocado provides 15 grams of heart-healthy unsaturated fat and NO cholesterol

– Great source of Fiber, Potassium, Vitamins C,K, Folate and B6

– Helps to absorb antioxidants such as lycopene and beta-carotene

– Makes taste buds happy 🙂

Ok, I’ll stop advocating for avocados for a minute and tell you the real reason that this fruit taught me a lesson this week.

While I like to have avocados around almost always, they have a short window of ripeness time before they go bad. When they get all wrinkly, dark, and ugly, you can pretty much bet that you’ll find them rotting from the inside out when you cut them open.

“Bad” Avocado?

The outside of one of mine looked just like that. In fact, it appeared to be so far gone that I was walking towards the trash to pitch it when for some odd reason, I decided last  minute to cut it open and see if anything was salvageable inside.

Wow…was I surprised! The inside wasn’t pitted, rotting, black or smelly, but a perfectly ripe “green-goodness” that was completely edible!

While I was enjoying half of it chopped up in my lunch of veggie-spaghetti leftovers, it hit me that I had judged this avocado by it’s outward appearance. I almost threw it away, and missed the opportunity for it to simply enrich my meal.

“good” on the inside

May sound juvenile, but it really struck me: What was on the outside wasn’t very attractive and LOOKED like it was going to be rotten, but it was actually sweet and desirable on the inside.  I hate to think that I might judge people on the outside like this sometimes, and throw away opportunities that could’ve simply enriched my life, or the life of another.

Do we ever see someone that looks undesirable to us – perhaps ‘dirty’ or ‘rotten’ on the outside – and choose not to take a moment to learn what’s actually on their inside? It’s humbling, but I know I’ve been guilty of this.

How about you? Are there any people that you avoid getting to know because from the outside they appear to be “mean” or “stuck up” or “scummy” or “trampy”?  God has actually brought one potentially missed-opportunity to mind, and I plan to remedy this the next time I have the chance. I’m challenging you to do the same.

Please leave your comments and feedback below, and let me know if you follow through with the challenge! I’m going to go eat the other half of my avocado now 😉