Article December 25, 1954 Issue

SURMOUNTING ADVERSITY

STANLEY B. SMITH

A Juniper shrub, known from Bible times as a desert plant thriving on much sunshine, was once planted in the shade. With a normal amount of sunshine it would have been a wide-spreading bush, but this one shot up a straight and slender tree. The absence of sunshine at the ground level impelled it to thrust its head continually higher in search of light and thereby to find new beauty.

Much of human experience seems to be planted in the shade of adversity. Often there is very little sunshine at the ground level, but if we are wise, we begin like all growing things to reach up for the light. Life has often had an upward thrust for one who at the ground level experienced nothing but shadow and darkness.

The lesson of the juniper bush points up the fact that there are never really any obstacles to our growth, but only challenges for us to develop our spiritual awareness of God's presence and power to greater heights.

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