BEES THAT STING ALSO BRING HONEY

One Saturday morning, a seven-year-old boy was playing in their front-yard garden in the middle of flowers in bloom. He was trying to catch butterflies with his torn net. Suddenly a bee flew to his position buzzing straightway landing on the back of his palm. The busy bee stung him, and he lurched crying to his Mom in the kitchen who was cooking pancakes for a morning snack. "I hate bees, Mommy, I hate bees," the boy angrily muttered. "I wish God never created bees," he complained furiously.

Mommy snobbishly threw a glimpse at her complaining son as she puts four pieces of those freshly cooked pancakes on a plate and pushed the plate toward her son. "Wait, don't eat it yet; let me pour some of these pure honey that I just bought yesterday," she said. The boy was feasting on the pancakes, dipping them in the honey that flowed on the plate. Mommy asked her son, "How's the honey, Johnny?"

"Really great Mom", he said. Mommy lifted Johnny to her lap and started stroking his bee-stung hand. Looking eye-to-eye to her son with a smile, she said, "You know, Johnny, the bee that stung you is the same bee that gave us the honey." The boy looked to her Mommy's eyes with a sheepish smile.

Pain is inevitable but misery is optional! God doesn't always still the storm, but He can calm the sailor!

(From a sermon by Jofrey Bustamante, When the Going Gets Tough! 7/26/2010)