Being Stretched

Just the other day, my daughter and I were at a shopping mall. We were walking past a candy store and there were some people gathered there to watch candy being made. Out of curiosity, we stopped and joined them.

There were different blocks of brightly coloured candy on the work bench with two staff members working on them. One of the staff took a big block of white candy and began kneading it as you would knead dough. After a while, he took the candy to a hook attached to the side of the work bench at about shoulder level. Placing one end of the candy on the hook, he started to pull the other end away from the hook, stretching it as far as it could go without breaking and then winding it around the hook for another stretch. This went on for a while. By the time he was done, the candy had turned a gleaming white colour and seemed bulkier in volume. It had been amazingly transformed!

A chunk was pulled off the white candy. Adding it to a lump of gleaming red candy, the combined block was rolled out into long thin strips that were later cut and moulded into the desired shapes.

We all go through similar stretching, rolling and shaping processes in life. To be honest, I don't like to be stretched. It's scary to be stretched and it can be quite uncomfortable, too. I'd rather be in my comfort zone where everything feels familiar and safe. But staying in the safe and known also means never experiencing anything new that can be rewarding or potentially life-transforming in a good way.

Being stretched may seem like a painful experience. But when I remember the transformed block of gleaming white candy at the end of its stretching process, I'm starting to think that the rewards may be greater than I imagine.

So, perhaps I should adopt a more positive attitude to the idea of being stretched the next time an opportunity presents itself.

Hey, it may not be so bad after all....

And who knows what the result may look like.....

.....a piece of gleaming red and white candy, perhaps.....

.....beautiful to behold and bursting with sweetness to the taste!


"Enlarge the place of your tent, and let them stretch out the curtains of your habitations; Do not spare; Lengthen your cords, and strengthen your stakes. For you shall expand to the right and to the left, and your descendants will inherit the nations, and make the desolate cities inhabited." ~ Isaiah 54:2,3~