Nope. . .it’s NOT what you’re thinking.
First, you might really be asking what kind of seeds are those?
As soon as I say, “MUSTARD SEED,” Look where your mind goes…right to the Gospel Gutter: IF YOU HAVE FAITH THE SIZE OF A MUSTARD SEED. . . .
Nope! It really isn’t what you’re thinking.
It may well be so that if you have faith the size of a mustard seed you can move a mountain. . .but if you have the Caring Compassion the size of the a mustard seed you can, continents!
She suffered the death of a child and she was devastated to say the least. She, understandably so, was unconsolable. She sought council from her Priest, her friends, her friend’s friends. She went to the best Counselors and Advisors–Nothing–there was no Peace, no consolation, no relief, real or now, imagined.
Some ONE suggested something that was a little out of the ordinary, and in this particular case, way off the well-traveled paths and even the over-familiar ruts. A Holy Man. A Guru. A Spiritualist. . . .
She was at her absolute Peace’s End. She would have given anything up to lose, but there was no longer NOTHING. She went!
He wasn’t chanting or humming or clicking bells a the end of his fingers.
He smiled and asked simply, softly, “HOW CAN I HELP?”
And then he listened.
And then he Listened some more.
Intently.
She told him what words couldn’t say, what ears couldn’t hear; what Souls fear to whisper; she wailed how her broken heart still painfully beat and she asked the magical, but never disappearing questions, that have answers, never-not:
“WHY?”
“HOW COME?”
“WHAT FOR?”
She went silent. She was air out of a balloon–deflated–(ALWAYS WORSE THAN DEFEATED)–again!
He got up and walked over to a small cabinet. He opened it and it creaked a whiny, “THANK-YOU,” in a most eery way.
He reached in, grabbed a small vile, and came back and sat down before her.
He opened the bottle a gave her a mustard seed.
She looked at it before it almost rolled out of the palm of her hand. So small it was she couldn’t hold it between her thumb and index finger. . .so small, so very, very small. . .so. . . .
Her assignment was to travel through each of the villages she had to traverse before making it home and stopping by each house along the way and simply ask for a mustard seed like hers and when she received just one, single, small mustard seed, she was to bring it back to him with this guarantee:
BRING BACK A MUSTARD SEED FROM JUST ONE OF THOSE HOUSES AND SHE WOULD UNDOUBTABLY, UNBELIEVABLY WOULD BE HEALED OF HER GRIEF–F O R E V E R!
Simple, huh?
She left, ran actually! Her face smiled; her heart beamed!
She knocked on door after door after door after. . . .
No Mustard Seed. Not one.
Hundred and hundreds of doors she pounded on and poured out the pain her heart couldn’t fully hold.
Not one little Mustard Seed!
Oh, wait. . .wait. . .wait for……….IT!
I forgot one SMALL, one very, very SMALL detail:
She was only to bring back one single mustard seed, from one single home, that never one single time, had ever suffered, one single Loss!
What do you suppose her biggest discovery was:
There’s a National Shortage of Mustard Seeds?
That Your Mustard Seed is Your Mustard Seed and Their’s is Their’s and they are both painfully valid?
Behind every door is a loss and pain so very deep that it can’t be spoken or fully shown, only masked?
That the Caring Compassion of the Giver of the Mustard Seed is more healing than the Debilitating, Noxious Pain of the Receiver of the Mustard Seed?
THAT. . . .
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