Do you love cashews? So do I. But did you know that cashew is a fruit as well as a nut? In Brazil, the nut is used as a handle to hold the delicious vitamin C fruit as you eat it. The nut is actually an appendage to the fruit and is poisonous and deadly in its raw state. The nut has to go through several cooking processes in order to extract the black acid juice before it is edible. That is one reason those delicious nuts cost so much in the store.
The cashew fruit is used to make jams, jellies and a delicious fruit drink. The fruit actually has more vitamin C than an orange.
One of our homes in Brazil was on a fruit farm. We had over an acre of orange and lime trees, coconut trees and cashew trees not to mention several dozen banana trees producing a steady stream of tree ripe bananas. We never had to buy fruit in a grocery store and our fruit was always as fresh as it comes right off the tree.
One day when our oldest son, Micky who was about 4 years old at the time, was playing in the yard, he pulled a cashew fruit from a tree and bit into the nut. Immediately, the acid from the nut started to eat into his lips, mouth and tongue. Fortunately, our yard man saw what had happened. As Micky was screaming in pain, Julio swept Micky up into his arms and rushed him into the house. We were terrified at what had happened and had no clue as to what to do. But Julio knew the exact remedy. He said, put sugar on it. We filled his mouth with sugar and miraculously the burn stopped. Although Micky had a sour mouth for a few days, no permanent damage was done.
There are a lot of bad things going on in our world today eating away at relationships like the acid of a cashew nut eats away at any flesh it touches. Could it be that the answer is sugar – translate that love. What the world needs now is love. Can we find ways in the bitterness of this world to show the love of Jesus Christ? Isn’t that what Christ calls us to do?
In His Love, Charles
