A young woman, the third daughter, a teenager, was complaining to her father about how difficult her life had become. A farmer of 54 years, he had been working in the fields all day.
He said nothing to his daughter, but motioned for her to follow him to the kitchen where he set three pans of water to boiling. To the first pan, he added fresh picked carrots; to the second, eggs from their chickens gathered in the morning air; and to the third, ground coffee recently purchased with the monthly supplies.
After all three had cooked, he put their contents into separate bowls, gifts from his mother upon his wedding. The farmer looked at his daughter and asked her to cut into the eggs and carrots and smell the coffee. "What does this all mean?" she asked impatiently.
"Each food," he said, "teaches us something about facing adversity, as represented by the boiling water." The carrot went in hard but came out soft and weak. The eggs went in fragile but came out hardened. The coffee, however, changed the water to something better.
"Which will you be like as you face life?" he asked. Will you give up, become hard -- or transform adversity into triumph? As the "chef" of your own life, what will you bring to the table?
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