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KICKING AND SCREAMING
By,
Joseph J. Mazzella
You can learn a lot from going to the market.
The longer I live the more I learn just from going there with my
eyes, ears, and heart open. The latest bit of wisdom that blessed me
there came just the other day. A young mother was walking with her
little child while pushing a cart loaded down with fruits and
vegetables. The tiny toddler was complaining the whole time about
how he hated all of these foods and wanted some candy. When his
mother refused, he began to throw a fit. His crying, kicking, and
screaming were getting louder and louder until his mom firmly said,
"If you don’t behave and eat your fruits and vegetables then you
won’t be getting any of the homemade cookies your grandma brought
over when we get home." With these words the crying stopped and the
child’s face brightened with an angelic smile. I could hear the pure
delight in his voice when he said, "Oh Boy! Grandma made cookies."
I smiled then, and realized that even as
adults, we are often like that toddler. God is holding our hands and
leading us on a path of incredible growth in learning, goodness,
love, and joy. The trouble is that often we are kicking and
screaming all the way. We don’t want what is really good for us. We
want what we think will be good for us right now. We can’t see those
delicious, homemade cookies God has waiting for us, because we are
too focused on that piece of hard candy in front of our eyes.
The rewards of love, joy, peace, happiness,
goodness, and delight that God has waiting for us are far greater
than we know. We just have to stop kicking and screaming and see
that He is taking us where we need to go. We just have to enjoy our
fruits and vegetables and know that even sweeter things are to come.
We just have to hold our Father’s hand and trust him to lead us
through this life and back home again.
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