The Smell of Manure
Our work, requiring challenges, are often tailor made for our growth. They are sometimes more a matter of things going right, not wrong. ... I love the description Harold W. Wood gives of just such a challenge.
"On my way to visit the Jameses the other evening, I saw a wheat field that appeared to be greener and taller than the others. Thinking about it for a while, I concluded that occasionally some loving farmer drives over the field with his tractor and pumps manure all over it. I thought, 'My, it's just like life. Here we are minding our business, growing our little hearts out. We're really quite green, somewhat productive, and very sincere. When out of the blue, life deals us a dirty one, and we're up to our eyebrows in manure.'
We, of course, conclude that life as we know it has just ended and will never be the same again. But one day, when the smell and the shock are gone, we find ourselves greener and more productive than we have ever been. Unfortunately, no matter how often we go through these growing experiences, we are never able to appreciate the sound of the tractor or the smell of the manure".
(The Smell of Manure, quote by Harold W. Wood).
Excerpt from: "What Are You Thinking?" BYU-Idaho Devotional -
LaNell L. Moore - June 1, 2004