I read a story recently about a teenage girl who was going through a rough time and asked her grandmother for advice. It seemed like she was going from one bad situation to another and she was at the end of her rope. Her grandmother said “I want you to pay close attention.” She put three pots of water on the stove and then turned the burners on high. The girl thought to herself, “I should have known that grandma would turn a serious life crisis into a cooking lesson.” But she tried to pay attention. When the water was all at a full boil, she put a potato in one pot, an egg in another pot and a scoop of ground coffee beans in the third. After a while, she dumped the water into the sink from the first pot and dumped the potato onto a plate. Then she dumped the water out of the second pot into the sink and the egg onto the plate. She then put a filter on top of a carafe and poured the contents of the third pot into the filter, disposed of the filter and grounds, then poured a fresh cup of coffee. She then instructed her granddaughter to carefully slice open the potato and peel the egg shell. She then began her life lesson.
” All three pots represent the same bad situation – boiling hot water. That situation turned the inside of the potato soft; turned the inside of the egg hard; and caused the ground coffee beans to released the essential oils in them to transform the boiling water into a pleasant cup of coffee. The difference between them was not the bad situation, but what each was made of inside. Many people allow a bad situation to turn them soft inside and weaken them. Others allow a bad situation to harden their hearts inside, making them cynical of all situations. Because you and I are Christians, we have within us the essentials to transform the difficult situations – God’s love, mercy, grace and the power of His Holy Spirit which give us the power to change those bad situations into blessings.”
We can’t control our situations, but we can control our reaction to them.