Infusion of Grace

A couple of weeks ago, I went for dinner and drinks with a dear friend to a restaurant known for their craft cocktails. I had this yummy drink with peach infused rum, and because I am who I am, I immediately starting figuring out how I could recreate the drink at home. First step in that process was, of course, making peach infused rum.

So, on the way home from our cruise this past Saturday, we stopped at a peach farm and I bought a bag of fresh peaches. I got on Pinterest, to read about the best way to infuse rum, and on Sunday, started the process for doing so.

Peeling the peaches, I couldn’t help but remember the time that I was in college when my aunt Valda and I, two of the least domestic women in the world at the time, decided to can peaches growing on my Granny’s peach trees. The problems were many. The peaches were way overripe, and we had no clue what we were doing, so both of us ended up with peach juice literally dripping off our elbows and all over our clothes. But being the driven and goal oriented women we were, you can also read that as stubborn, we persisted. Finally we finished the job, and it is still literally one of my favorite memories of time spent with Valda.

But anyway, I digress. Shocking, I know.

Anyway, I followed the process to begin the infusion process, using 10 of the peaches I had purchased. These peaches weren’t cheap. So in the last couple of days, being the frugal, cough cough cheapskate, person that I am, I’ve been thinking about how I could utilize the used peaches once the infusion process is finished, rather than just throwing them away. I’ve considered using them to make peach simple syrup. I’ve thought of freezing them and using them to make peach daiquiris. A friend suggested I make drunken peach cobbler, which led to a consideration of making peach rum bread pudding.

The question is how the infusion of the rum will change the character of the peaches and the subsequent flavor they bring to the finished product, and whether if I use them in something other than daiquiris, whether the cooking process will cook any infused alcohol out of the peaches. It seems like that might be an important thing to know, depending on who I might feed the food to…

In the process of considering how the peaches might best be used, taking into consideration how their character has been changed by sitting in rum for 5 days, I started thinking about how the effect of the rum on these farm fresh peaches isn’t all that different than the effect of trauma is on people.

With the peach, what you start out with is something that is fresh, its natural state unaffected by any outside influences, spices, pesticides. When you add the rum, you change the character of the peach, and figuring out how to use what’s left after the infusion requires you to consider several things. In considering using the peaches in baking, you have to consider whether you can cook the alcohol out enough so that the peaches in their altered state are appropriate for making something you’re going to give to children. You have to consider whether the rum will have changed the flavor of the peach to the extent it will affect your recipe in a negative way, or whether it might add a deeper layer of flavor than what you would have with fresh peaches. In considering using them in simple syrup for cocktails or in peach daiquiris, you have to consider whether or not the added alcohol is going to affect the end taste of your beverage. So many things to think about that you wouldn’t have to consider if the peach had gotten to the end of its life without anyone doing things to it that caused such a material change in the character of what it started out as.

That’s kind of what trauma does to people.

Trauma comes in many forms. It can come from physical abuse or neglect, sexual or emotional abuse, bullying, death of a loved one, serious illness, or loss. Few of us get to the end of our lives without having been infused at some point with some sort of trauma that, like with the rum and the peaches, alters who we end up becoming. It doesn’t make us less useful, it just makes us different. It doesn’t mean we have to be thrown away, it just means we have to consider how the effect of that infusion of trauma might need to be considered in our interactions with other people. Our inclusion as an ingredient in a recipe, if you will. It may be that the effect of our trauma means we might not be best fitted in a situation that we might’ve fit without that infusion. It may be that the infusion of trauma makes us stronger in ways than we would’ve been, and that at times that added strength might be enough to overwhelm an already delicately balanced recipe. But that infusion also may add a layer of complexity and richness to our lives and to our character that is an unexpected and added bonus to the people that we come into contact with, and in the cake of life we choose to be a part of.

Spending time figuring out the best use for the rum infused peaches has been a fun diversion in what has been a stressful work week. But as fun as that has been, it doesn’t come close to the adventure of figuring out how the person I am now, with all my discoloration, or changed texture, or deepened flavors, can be used for the glory of the God who made me. The God who has loved me every step of the way, through the process of those changes. The God who, even when I thought I was too damaged and altered to do the work set out for me, never once considered the fact that I might should just be thrown away. The God who uses all things to make me into who I was meant to be to do the work that God would have me do.

And that, my friends, is the greatest recipe adventure of all.