A Carrot, An Egg or A Cup of Coffee?

You will never look at a cup of coffee the same way again.

A young woman went to her mother and told her about her life and how things were so hard for her. She did not know how she was going to make it and wanted to give up, She was tired of fighting and struggling. It seemed as one problem was solved, a new one arose.

Her mother took her to the kitchen. She filled three pots with water and placed each on a high fire. Soon the pots came to boil. In the first she placed carrots, in the second she placed eggs, and in the last she placed ground coffee beans.

She let them sit and boil; without saying a word. In about twenty minutes she turned off the burners. She fished the carrots out and placed them in a bowl. She pulled the eggs out and placed them in a bowl. Then she ladled the coffee out and placed it in a bowl.

Turning to her daughter, she asked, ‘ Tell me what you see.’ ‘Carrots, eggs, and coffee,’ she replied. Her mother brought her closer and asked her to feel the carrots. She did and noted that they were soft. The mother then asked the daughter to take an egg and break it. After pulling off the shell, she observed the hard boiled egg. Finally, the mother asked the daughter to sip the coffee. The daughter smiled as she tasted its rich aroma.

The daughter then asked, ‘What does it mean, mother?’ Her mother explained that each of these objects had faced the same adversity: boiling water. Each reacted differently. The carrot went in strong, hard, and unrelenting. However, after being subjected to the boiling water, it softened and became weak. The egg had been fragile. Its thin outer shell had protected its liquid interior, but after sitting through the boiling water, its inside became hardened. The ground coffee beans were unique, however. After they were in the boiling water, they had changed the water.

‘Which are you?’ she asked her daughter. ‘When adversity knocks on your door, how do you respond? Are you a carrot, an egg or a coffee bean?

Think of this: Which am I?

Am I the carrot that seems strong, but with pain and adversity do I wilt and become soft and lose my strength?

Am I the egg that starts with a malleable heart, but changes with the heat? Did I have a fluid spirit, but after a death, a breakup, a financial hardship or some other trial, have I become hardened and stiff? Does my shell look the same, but on the inside am I bitter and tough with a stiff spirit and hardened heart?

Or am I like the coffee bean? The bean actually changes the hot water, the very circumstance that brings the pain. When the water gets hot, it releases the fragrance and flavor. If you are like the bean, when things are at their worst, you get better and change the situation around you. When the hour is the darkest and trials are their greatest do you elevate yourself to another level? How do you handle adversity?  Are you a carrot, an egg or a coffee bean?

May you have enough happiness to make you sweet, enough trials to make you strong, enough sorrow to keep you human and enough hope to make you happy. The happiest of people don’t necessarily have the best of everything; they just make the most of everything that comes along their way. The brightest future will always be based on a forgotten past; you can’t go forward in life until you let go of your past failures and heartaches. When you were born, you were crying and everyone around you was smiling. Live your life so at the end, you’re the one who is smiling and everyone around you is crying.

May we all be COFFEE!!!!!!!

I Was So Close!

I was so close to shutting down my internet life completely this week.  I know a few people who would be happy to hear that news!  Sorry, it’s not going to happen.  Nothing bad has happened or anything.  I was just so frustrated with trying to juggle things going on in our lives.  First and foremost, no doubt or question about it are my duties as a servant of God.  My husband, daughters and grandchildren come next.  I was thinking that I’m so very grateful that I don’t have an internet life that’s crippling if I’m not online or not participating with so many things that I cannot keep up with them.  Wouldn’t that be a terrible way to live?  I think so and I feel so strongly that it would be taking away from a commitment to Christ.  If my heart is on the internet and all the ritual routines with it, then what’s left for God?

I’ve been involved with web designing and internet for over 14 years, and I’m so thankful that God gave me the conscience that He did by not allowing me to be so comfortable with it all that I cannot have a life around it.  My family and I went out of town this past weekend for me to do a networking job for some friends and also to help them around the yard and the house with much needed repairs that had been put off far too long.   I can honestly say that I never missed being online even though I was running up and down stairs between computers to get them setup and online.  I didn’t check my email, I didn’t check my blog or my website from last Friday morning until late Monday night when we got home.  It was soooooooo nice to know that I have my priorities in order and am giving to God the way I should be.

If I ever did give it all up, would it affect me and how would it affect me?  Well, yes, it would affect me, I have to admit to that because I cannot describe my love for designing and building websites for others.  I would miss doing that terribly.  I would miss the people I have become friends with, but since I have most of their phone numbers and addresses then I wouldn’t lose touch with them.  I would miss being able to surprise people on their birthdays and not having a way to share a smile online with them.  I would miss the time I have to myself during the night, like right now, I hear my husband breathing in his slumber and know that my daughter is fast asleep and maybe even sharing her space with a kitten or two.  I would also miss all the late night devotions that I’ve done for weekly Blogger Friend School assignments and I would most definitely miss the Blogger Friend School because I do love it more than anyone knows.  Other than those things, I don’t think that I would be missing out on having an internet life.

I still have plans to post pictures of my daughters and husbands birthdays…I just haven’t done it yet.  Staying away and praying!

Hello

We’re heading to upstate Indiana for the weekend!  We’ll return Sunday evening!  Actually we went to Indiana last Thursday for Gerald’s birthday and then I went earlier in the week with a friend of our family’s.  Neither of those trips went to Northern Indiana where we had planned to go.  We did go out of town anyway and had a wonderful time.  We were in south central KY where we have some dear friends that we love to visit.  We actually stayed longer than we had planned.  This is an elderly couple and they had lots of home repairs that neither of them are able to do.  Gerald and I worked outside doing some things around the yard and front porch Sunday afternoon and I spent that evening networking the computers that are up and down stairs.  Later that night we went out for some ice cream at Dairy Queen…yum yum!  I have pictures of our trip to the Aquarium for our birthday celebrations and will post them shortly.  Have a nice night.

The 7-Ups

I found this and printed it out and you may want to do the same thing.

1. Wake Up !!
Decide to have a good day.
“This is the day the Lord hath made;
let us rejoice and be glad in it.”
Psalms 118:24

2. Dress Up !!
The best way to dress up is to put on a smile.
A smile is an inexpensive way to improve your looks.
“The Lord does not look at the things man looks at.
Man looks at outward appearance,
but the Lord looks at the heart.”
I Samuel 16:7

3. Shut Up!!
Say nice things and learn to listen.
God gave us two ears and one mouth,
so He must have meant for us to do
twice as much listening as talking.
“He who guards his lips guards his soul.”
Proverbs 13:3

4. Stand Up!!
.. . . for what you believe in.
Stand for something or you will fall for anything.
“Let us not be weary in doing good; for at the proper time,
we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.
Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good…”
Galatians 6:9-10

5. Look Up !!
.. . . to the Lord.
“I can do everything through Christ who strengthens me”.
Philippians 4:13

6. Reach Up !!
.. . . for something higher.
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
and lean not unto your own understanding.
In all your ways, acknowledge Him, and He will direct your path.”
Proverbs 3:5-6

7. Lift Up !!
.. . . your Prayers.
“Do not worry about anything; instead
PRAY ABOUT EVERYTHING.”
Philippians 4:6

Growing In Christ

Once we step onto the path to Christianity, most of us expect our new life to come rushing to us in one outstanding experience. We tend to think in windfall terms, of suddenly being immersed in an avalanche of abundance.

So does it happen that way?  Sometimes yes, but not usually. And for a very good reason. Windfalls of happiness can tend to be distorted, often bringing as much discomfort as comfort and as many questions as answers. Ask any lottery winner, which I’m not, and you’ll come to understand that a windfall can prove to be just as painful as the pain we are trying to escape.

Every problem you have, every lack and every limitation has a purpose or it would not be in your life. To expect these experiences to suddenly disappear without that purpose being revealed is to expect to be cheated out of the good each experience brings. Instead of wanting them to quickly disappear, which is a form of resistance, we’re much better served when we simply ask them what good they have come to bring.

You see, it is not an eradication of these problems, lacks and limitations you need, it is a new understanding. Were Christianity to rush in, it would only deprive you of that understanding and leave you unprepared. And happiness never remains long where a place for it has not been lovingly prepared.

Christianity, therefore, is more apt to arrive softly and without fanfare, like a gentle breeze wafting through an open window in the night. It comes upon us gradually, not in a fell swoop, but with calm and quiet consistency. This way, rather than looking up to suddenly find ourselves surrounded by unaccustomed abundance, we look up one day to marvel at how easily and effortlessly we grew into an abundant new life.

By all means, invite Christians into your life and do so daily. But do not expect it to rush at you, for in all likelihood, it will not. That would require a quantum leap in consciousness and very few of us are prepared for such mental leaps through time and space. Instead, be willing to trust that Christian values are flowing to you just as it should: in a time and manner you can most perfectly benefit from.

Even now, as you read this, God’s love and warmth is flowing to you like a gentle melody. Listen closely and you may hear its song. But you must listen for a whisper, not a roar.  Above all else you must trust that it is flowing to you in such a way that is divine.  This is just as Jesus says a seed will grow up in

Mark  4:26-29:

And he said, So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the ground;

And should sleep, and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how.

For the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself; first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear.

But when the fruit is brought forth, immediately he putteth in the sickle, because the harvest is come.

The Game

In the early thirties, during the Great Depression, an out-of-work salesman named Charles Darrow found money in short supply, jobs non-existent and his family in need. Like countless others, Darrow had every reason to be worried and no one would have blamed him.

But realizing that worry helped nothing, Charles and his wife, Ester, resisted the urge and, instead, spent the hours re-inventing a modestly popular folk game that had been around for 30 years or more. The game, which allowed players to rent properties, pay taxes and utilities and do their best to avoid going to “jail” and/or the “poorhouse” was called Landlord.

Landlord had already been reinvented a dozen or more times by various individuals, and a few had even marketed it with marginable success. But in early 1934, a friend showed Darrow a version of the game that reflected a favorite resort location of the time. It was rather lackluster in appearance and focused primarily on the greed of marketplace monopolizers. In that version, as well as its predecessors, players actually had to be the “bad” guy to win.

Darrow decided to revamp it completely, creating a more colorful game board with game pieces based on items found in his own home, a square playing surface instead of a circular one and streets and properties that were color-coded to correspond with the board. The “poorhouse” was done away with completely, and the rules rewritten to focus more on financial strategy than greed. In short, he made the game more fun to play.

Together, while economic depression raged all around them, Charles and Ester spent countless happy hours playing and refining the game, becoming mental millionaires over and over again as they bought, sold and rented property in this miniaturized version of Atlantic City, the resort area where, in more prosperous times the couple had spent many enjoyable days.

They renamed the newly revamped game Monopoly and after perfecting the rules, invited close friends and neighbors to play their new version along with them. Those friends clamored to buy their own copies of the game and encouraged the couple to market this newest version.

Based on this encouragement, Charles Darrow soon found himself demonstrating Monopoly in the stores of Philadelphia where people by the hundreds stood in line to buy it. When orders for the 1934 Christmas season were so great the couple could not possibly fill them, Darrow then sought out Parker Brothers, and sold rights to the game in exchange for royalties. Within a year, the Darrows were millionaires. All because in a time when life seemed dismal and doomed, Charles and Ester Darrow opted to play with possibility.

Whether you have an immediate need for money, a health concern, or are dealing a relationship gone awry, no matter what the difficulty may be, it will not be solved by your worry. In fact, the more you worry, the farther you will remove yourself from the solution you seek.

So today, no matter what your problems might be, I urge you to follow Darrow’s lead and play with possibility instead. Add a splash of color to whatever bleak thoughts you’re entertaining, change the shape of your current mindset, and start strategizing with the playful side of your nature. Look for a more joyful way to approach life, and you’ll soon find life to be more enjoyable.

Life, after all, is a wonderful game of infinite potentiality. Why not play it that way?  Give your fears and worries over to God and leave them at His feet.  Live it, learn it, love Him!

Dirt Roads

Updated Lately?

I’ve been noticing on my site meter that lots of lurkers visitors that I have are still using the old version of Firefox.  I’m wondering do you not know that Firefox has a new version out and that it’s completely AWESOME!!!  Also, if you’re a homeschooler, like we are, there’s a great new toolbar, Homeschoolbar, that Tiany and her hubby came out with and it’s even MORE AWESOME than the new Firefox!

Have a great day!