Be the Bean…

“Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming it.”

                                                                      -Helen Keller

One of my favorite stories about adversity :

     Adversity always changes us at our very core.  A daughter complained to her father about being tired of always struggling with problem after problem.  Her father took her to the kitchen and filled three pots with water.  In one pot he placed carrots, in another, eggs, and in the last, ground coffee beans.  He let them sit and boil.

     After a while, he put the carrots, eggs, and coffee in separate bowls.  Turning to her, he asked, “Darling, what do you see?”

  “Carrots, eggs, and coffee,” she replied.

     He explained that each of the items had faced the same adversity – boiling water – but each had reacted differently.  The carrot went in strong, hard, and unrelenting, but after being subjected to the boiling water, it became soft and weak.  The egg went into the water fragile-its thin outer shell protecting the liquid interior.  But after sitting in the boiling water, its insides hardened.  The ground coffee beans were different from the other two, however.  Instead of being changed by the boiling water, they changed the water.
    
     The man then asked his daughter, “When adversity knocks on your door, which are you?”  So the question to all of us is – How does adversity affect you?  Does it cause you to become soft and weak?  Does it make you hard and immovable?  Or do YOU change the adversity?
“Life is thickly sown with thorns, and I know no other remedy than to pass quickly through them.  The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater their power to harm us.” -Voltaire
 
     So exactly how should we be when we face adversity?  When I think about my own life and times I have faced adversity, I realize this : Sometimes I was like the carrot…Sometimes like the egg…BUT I ALWAYS ended up like the coffee beans.  The truth is…we don’t know how we’ll react to adversity, especially when it blindsides us…when it hits us and stops us dead in our tracks…we don’t know.  I’m telling you…It’s OK.  You can be hard and immovable…you can be weak and soft.  It really just depends on what adversity is before you at the time. You’re allowed to be what you need to be…But NEVER NEVER NEVER lose hope…NEVER GIVE UP.  It is amazing the strength God gives us to overcome adversity.  I have a favorite saying that is often up on the walls of my gym : “I’m never down…I’m either up…or getting up.”  So if you’re a carrot right now…or an egg…it doesn’t matter…As long as you realize you are not alone and adversity is on your path to make you stronger…Now get up…get up…get up…and MAKE yourself be…a coffee bean 🙂 
“When life gives you a hundred reasons to cry, show life you have a thousand reasons to smile.” – Unknown
“I can do all things in Christ who strengthens me” – Philippians 4:13
 

 

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