Which Are You?
A young man went to his Mother and began to share with her how difficult his life seemed…how hard things were. He said that he didn’t know how he was going to make it…he was tired of fighting and struggling. It seemed that as soon as one problem was solved another came up.
His Mother rose and went into the kitchen… the young man followed. Without a word she began to move about the kitchen…filling three pots with water and turning the burners on high…soon they began to boil.
In the first pot she put some carrots…in the second several eggs… and in the third a handful of coffee beans. She sat down and the time passed in silence…until she again moved to the stove and ladled the carrots into one bowl, the eggs into another and poured the coffee into a mug.
Turning to her son she asked, “Tell me, what do you see?”
“Carrots, eggs and coffee”, he replied. “But what does it mean?”
Her arm around her son’s waist, she began to explain…Each of these objects faced the same adversity…boiling water. Each one reacted differently.
The carrot went in strong, hard and unrelenting…and became weak and soft.
The egg had been fragile. It’s thin outer shell protected its interior…but after a while it became hardened on the inside.
The coffee beans however…in the boiling water…they changed the water!
Which are you? Are you the carrot that seems strong…but with adversity you wilt and lose strength.
Are you like the egg…a malleable heart, a fluid spirit, but with a death, a breakup or financial hardship you become hardened and stiff.
Or are you like the coffee bean? The bean actually changed the hot water…the very circumstance that brought the pain. If you are like the bean, when things are at their worst…you get better and change the situation around you. When trials come do you elevate yourself to another level? Do you change the water…Change your world?
You see…that coffee bean gave of itself…it took action…that is how we change our world.
What is calling you today… will you answer? Will you give of yourself and take action… no matter how small the first step?
