Can You Endure ?

While sitting at the kitchen table...
A daughter spent the day complaining to her mother about her life and
how hard it was. She stated that she was at the point where she could
no longer take it and wanted to give up all together.
The mother quietly rose and placed three pots of boiling water on the
stove. In one pot she placed carrots, in the other pot, eggs and in the
final pot coffee.
She allowed each pot to boil for twently minutes.
She carefully placed the carrots in one bowl, the eggs in the second
and coffee in the third.
She asked her daughter to touch each of the three items.
Her daughter resisted. Then upon her insistance, she did.
The mother explianed ," Each item has been subjected to the same
conditions, boiling hot water for exactly the same amount of time.

The carrots went into the water hard and have now boiled soft, the eggs
went into the water soft, and came out hard inside.  The coffee has
changed the water entirely into something else.

You my dear, need to be like the coffee, changing the adversity of the hot water into something entirely new and flavorful."

( I am re-running the above article I wrote near this time last year, my mother was in the hospital again and I was living out of a waiting room and at her bedside. An wonderful woman, who was there for her husband, sat beside me and shared with me the above lesson she taught her daughter. Hearing this story for the first time gave me the strength to endure caring for my mom especially over the past two years. I have been caring for mom since 2003 when her kidney failed. We had been in and out of the hospital so much, especially during the past two years. I heard this story the midnight of Christmas last year. I believe that God assigned that woman to divine upon me a special gift of hope and wisdom. I will take my messages in any form they come. To any of you dealing with adversity this holiday season, I pray for you that a moment happens where you become inspired to endure.)