Adversity

Hello Readers,

Throughout the course of our lives we often have to face and deal with challenges that test our strengths and serve to form our character as we mature and we could never learn to be brave, courageous and patient if there was only joy in the world and nothing else.

Here is a little story I would like to share with you and this is a good lesson no matter what age or stage of your life you are in.  You will see what I mean.

A young woman confided in her grandmother that she had been cheated on by someone she loved and highly regarded.  Obviously she was devastated and heartbroken because all the trust had gone from the relationship.  She recalled all the hard work and effort she had invested into making her life and a personal relationship a success, but obviously it was not enough and now she felt as though her life was blown apart.  She was also tired of fighting and struggling because as one problem was resolved, another one blew up in her face and she could see no end to the situation.

Her grandmother took her to the kitchen and filled three pots up with boiling water on the cooking hob.  In the first pot  she put in carrots, in the second eggs and in the third, ground coffee beans.  Both women sat there watching the items boil without saying a word.  After what seemed like an eternity, grandma turned to her granddaughter and asked her what she could see? Carrots, eggs and coffee she replied.  Grandma then asked her granddaughter to examine all three items more carefully because each had faced the same adversity, boiling water and that each item had reacted differently.  The carrot went in hard, tough and resilient but after much boiling emerged soft and weak.  The fragile egg with its outer shell protecting its liquid interior, but sitting in the boiling water turned its yolk harder and harder.  The coffee beans, however, changed the water because it coloured it brown.  The beans didn’t change, the water did.

So when facing adversity, which one are you?  Are you the carrot that seems strong, but when faced with pain and adversity you turn soft and lose all your strength? Are you the egg that starts with a malleable heart, but after a massive set back become hard, bitter and stiff?  Or are you like the coffee bean that actually changes the water, the very circumstances that brought on the pain?  When the water got hot the coffee beans released the flavour, aroma and colour.

If you are like the coffee beans, it means that when things reach their very worst and the going gets tougher and tougher, you actually get better and better because you are able to change the situation around you to work for you.  You perhaps can see an opportunity arising that was not evident before.  There is always a silver lining in every dark cloud and out of all things bad, something good eventually emerges, although at the time catastrophes happening, it isn’t always easy to see this until later on, when time has gone by and there is some clear blue water between you and the incident.  When the hour is at its darkest and the trials are the greatest, are you able to elevate to another level, or do you collapse in a broken heap and happy to just ‘give up’?

How do you handle adversity?  Are you the carrot, the egg or the coffee bean?…..And what doesn’t kill us, makes us stronger.

Until Next Week,

Love and Light,

Linda and The Lulas xxx