Which are you: Carrot, egg, or coffee bean?

One day, a daughter complained to her father how things were going hard for her.  She said, “Father, I do not know how I am going to make it.  I feel like giving up. I’m tired of fighting and struggling. Every time a problem is solved, a new one comes along. I just can’t take it anymore.”
Her father took her to the kitchen, filled three pots with water, and placed them each on high heat. Soon the pots came to a boil. In one pot of boiling water, he placed carrots. In the second, he placed eggs, and in the last pot, he placed coffee beans.  He let them sit and boil, without saying a word. The daughter impatiently waited, wondering what he was doing.

Twenty minutes later, he turned off the burners. He strained the water from the carrots and placed them in a bowl. He lifted the eggs out and placed them in another bowl. Then he ladled the steaming coffee into a third bowl.

Turning to her he asked, “What do you see?” “Carrots, eggs, and coffee,” she replied. He brought her closer and asked her to feel the carrots first.  She touched the carrots and noted that they were soft and mushy. He then asked her to take an egg and break it.  After cracking its shell, she saw the hard-boiled egg.  Finally, he asked her to sip the coffee.  She smiled as she tasted its flavor and smelled the rich aroma.

She humbly asked, “But what does it mean, Father?” He explained that each of them had been plunged into boiling water, but  each had reacted differently. The carrot went into the water strong and hard but after being subjected to the boiling water, it softened and became weak.

The egg had been fragile.  Its thin outer shell had protected its soft, liquid interior.  But after sitting in the boiling water, it became hard on the inside.

The ground coffee beans were unique, however. After being in the boiling water, the water did not change them. They changed the water! “Which are you?” the father gently asked his daughter. “When adversity knocks on your door, how do you respond?  Are you more like a carrot, an egg, or a coffee bean?”

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How about you?  Are you the carrot that started out strong and hard long ago, but with the pain and adversity of your life struggles, did you become soft and lose your strength?   Are you the egg that started out soft inside?  Were you a fluid spirit, but after the pain of death, abuse, rejection, poor health, divorce, or a layoff, have you become hardened?  Your outer shell may look the same, but has your heart become hard-boiled and toughened?

Or are you like the coffee bean?  That was plunged into the rapidly boiling water when the beans gave flavor and aroma, and would even please whoever encounters it. Do you worship God more in the midst of problems, that people see that you have used the situation to make you into a better person?

Be like the coffee bean and leave a fragrance that lasts. :)

Browsed through Francis Kong's blog and read this. Thought I might share it here because I really loved it.