What do Apples have to do with Friendship?

This morning, while I was peeling apples, I just asked God to tell me something — reveal something, say anything — basically, “Hey, I’m here, we didn’t get a lot of time this morning, talk to me.” And as I’m standing there, I’m ready to throw away three whole bags of apples because we forgot about them in the fridge. The person who normally eats apples isn’t here right now, so they’ve been sitting there getting bruised and soft and honestly kind of sad. And I’m thinking, This stinks. I hate wasting food. I hate wasting anything. But I was fully prepared to toss them. I’ve moved them aside so many times, not wanting to deal with them but also not wanting to throw them away. It was this little mental burden every time I opened the fridge to make a meal or offer kids a snack.

This morning I took them out ready to finally deal with them. There’s actually so much you can do with an old apple. You can make apple pie, applesauce, apple butter — or you can literally just eat it because they aren’t even bad. They just aren’t perfect. So I started making applesauce. I cut off the bruised parts, cleaned the outside, and looked for the still intact center.

And of course, right there in my kitchen, God dropped a simile on me.

Relationships – friendships – are like apples.

Sometimes we’re willing to throw away a bruised or squishy friendship simply because it’s not new anymore. It’s old. It’s bruised. We forgot about it. It’s been sitting on the back shelf of our lives, untouched, undealt with. And instead of dealing with it, we either toss it, ignore it, or pretend it doesn’t matter. But we could take it out of the crisper, clean it off, and give it new life. It just takes time and effort.

And God started nudging me — not harshly, just honestly:

How many friendships have I let go straight to the trash? How many of them are constantly pushed to the side because I just can’t right now? How many relationships have I let sour in the crisper because I didn’t give them attention? How many relationships have died simply because I didn’t have the time — or didn’t make the time — to create something new out of them?

And right as I’m thinking about all of this, I’m reminded of Peter in John 21:15–19. Peter had bruised his relationship with Jesus — badly. He denied Him three times. Not passively, but actively denied Him! That’s not a small bruise; that’s a deep wound. And Jesus could’ve tossed him out, said “You messed up too much. I even told you that you would do this and you still chose to deny me!” But instead, Jesus sits with him and basically says, “Let’s deal with this. Let’s restore what’s broken.” He peels back the layers, asks Peter three times if he loves Him — not to shame him, but to heal him. That’s the simmering process. That’s the cutting away of the bruised parts so sweetness can come back. That’s the power of inviting Jesus – the Holy Spirit – into the process of restoration.

I see this all the time in my office with clients too. Relationships bruised for good reasons or not‑so‑good reasons, either thrown away or left to remind us of past choices. And here’s the thing: ignoring a relationship doesn’t freeze it in place. It actually makes it worse. People, just like apples, still get nicked and bruised even while they’re being ignored. Being ignored is not passive — it still hurts.

And then there’s Jacob and Esau in Genesis 32–33. Jacob avoided Esau for years because of guilt, fear, and honestly because he didn’t want to deal with the horrific mess he created. That’s a crisper‑drawer relationship if I’ve ever seen one. Well, maybe shoved in the back with all the new veg attempting to cover up the mistake of forgetting and ignoring the old. But eventually Jacob has to face it. He has to pull that apple out and deal with it. And when he finally does, Esau doesn’t attack him — he embraces him. Sometimes the thing we’re terrified to deal with is actually the thing that brings healing when we finally stop avoiding it.

And when we finally decide to rebuild, we have to peel and cut away the hardened skin, the bruises, the places that were nicked over time. We have to spend time working on them when that was never the intention when we bought them. Then comes the simmering — the heat, the sweating, the slow merging of ingredients until something new and sweet forms.

Rebuilding relationships requires a long simmer. A willingness to sweat it out with the other person. A willingness to let your worlds merge again. A willingness to add the spices back in over time.

And honestly, this whole apple thing also reminds me of Jeremiah 18:1–6 — the potter and the clay. The clay gets messed up in the potter’s hands, but he doesn’t throw it away. He doesn’t say, “Well, this batch is ruined.” He reshapes it. He forms it again into something new. God doesn’t toss bruised or broken things. He remakes them. And if He does that with us, maybe we can do that with each other. (Look up Kintsugi art if you want to do something creative in the process of healing.)

So here’s the challenge — for you and honestly for myself:

Where have we pushed people aside? Where have we ignored someone and created a blind spot? What’s been sitting in the crisper of our hearts, taking up space and passively reminding us that we haven’t dealt with it? What have we believed belongs in the trash but actually could be made new?

These apples had been taking up residence in my drawer for far too long. They weren’t sitting there quietly. They were in the way, blocking space for new things I could be enjoying. Just like guilt, shame, arguments, unresolved bruises, and unforgiveness take up space whether we admit it or not. Hebrews 12:15 reminds us “that no “root of bitterness” springs up and causes trouble”. Don’t let bitterness take root. 

At some point, we have to pull the apples out of the drawer and deal with them.

The choice is yours: Are you going to throw them in the trash? Or are you going to make them into something new and sweet?