One day, a distraught girl came to her mother with a problem heavy on her mind.
The mother let her daughter finish telling all about her hardship, then went to the kitchen. She got out a potato, egg, and coffee beans.
Without saying a word, she put each in separate pots of boiling water, waited for five minutes, and took them out.
She asked the daughter what she saw. The potato, which had gone in strong, came out mushy and soft. The egg started fragile and came out hardened. The coffee beans changed the water into something completely new.
Each one faced the same adversity, but their response was unique.
She asked the daughter, “Which one are you?
The potato, which starts strong but in the heat becomes weak?
The egg which starts out malleable but afterwards hardens?
Or the coffee bean, which releases fragrance and flavor with the heat, changing the water around it. At the worst, it gets better. (Original source unknown)
I have posted this story before, but I thought of it again as I read D&C 29:7.
Christ speaks of gathering his elect. And who are His elect? Those who “hear [His] voice and harden not their hearts.”
In essence, we are chosen when we choose Him.
When we hear and heed, changing for the better within any circumstance we face.
The moral of this potato and egg story is typically “life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react” (Charles Swindoll)
But, I’d like to add, how you react can be 100% aided by our Savior.
He allows trials to not DEFINE us, but REFINE us into the people He wants us to be.
In the fire of adversity, when we give heed to Christ, He helps us to not lose strength like a potato, or become hardened like an egg, but to become like a coffee bean.
He helps us change ourselves in our circumstance, becoming better instead of bitter in the heat.
Choose Him today.
He has already chosen you.
He “reaches our reachings.”
But we have to reach out.
Head and hear.
And be changed.
come follow me daily 