My dad taught me how to make wine.

It’s one of my clearest memories with my father. He found joy making something others enjoy.

I remember the juice and the yeast and the gallon jugs that looked like they should be full of wine.

I mostly remember the balloons. I sat in the dark room watching them fill up with what, I’m not sure.

I was too young to drink it. I’m not sure I would have anyway. But, I remember being with him at the fishing pier tackle shop and watching the jugs. My dad would smile each time I reported the jug progress.

And the balloons would blow up on their own, day after day. I am pretty sure I thought what we did was illegal. It deserved a dark room.

Good wine takes time… and tanks, vats, barrels and kegs before it makes it to the bottles. In Italy, they sell wine in demijohns (I know this because I bought a half-demijohn, around seven gallons, from a neighbor one time).

My dad said to me that wine takes time and that’s okay. Time, and the skill set, and balloons.

Jesus tells me this:

 “And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. For the wine would burst the wineskins, and the wine and the skins would both be lost. New wine calls for new wineskins.”

This would be the moment Simon Peter could have asked, “and your point is?” But no one asked; they already knew.

I’m fairly certain my dad never used the same balloons on his next batch.

When God is doing a new work, it needs a new way to express it. And a new skin to wrap around it. I’m good with starting today with a new skin, ready for new wine. Maybe that’s the way you can start again, too?