The Farmer and the Rock
Theme: Confronting Obstacles and the Sacrament of Reconciliation
For twenty years, a farmer plowed his field around a large, stubborn rock sticking out of the dirt. He broke three plows on it, ruined his cultivator, and wasted countless hours navigating his tractor around it.
Every time he hit it, he would curse the rock and complain about how much of a burden it was. But he never dug it up, assuming it was the tip of a massive boulder that went deep into the earth.
Finally, one spring, after breaking yet another plow blade, he had enough. He grabbed a heavy iron crowbar, wedged it under the edge of the rock, and pushed down with all his might.
To his absolute shock, the rock popped right out of the dirt. It wasn't a massive boulder at all. It was just a flat, shallow stone no more than six inches thick.
The farmer sat in the dirt, shaking his head. He had spent two decades working around an obstacle that took only two minutes to remove.
Reflection
We all have "rocks" in the fields of our soulsâ€â€bad habits, secret sins, or lingering guilt. For years, we work around them, allowing them to break us down because we are terrified they are too big to remove. But when we finally bring them to God in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, we discover that His mercy pops them right out. Don't spend a lifetime plowing around a sin that grace can remove in a moment.