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I grew up knowing all too well what coal was. Let’s just say coal and I were “up close and personal.”<\/p>\n
You see, we used it for our main heat source in the front of our home. The structure was an old Camp Croft army barracks my mother and father bought after the camp closed near their property in Spartanburg. Dad was in construction so he turned that long rectangular building into a very nice six room home. I lived there all my life through my early years in college.<\/p>\n
Since my father ran an ice and fuel company and coal was the “fuel,” I knew coal like the back of my hand. I even had to shovel it a couple of times from the large heap where it was unloaded on the side of the plant.<\/p>\n
John Anderson sings this gospel song; I’m Just an Old Chunk of Coal.<\/em><\/strong> He continues “but I’m gonna be a diamond some day.” He claims he is a “work in progress” and that he is going to “find a better way to walk” and “find the best way to talk.” <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n One gets the idea that he may have some things to work on.<\/p>\n Truth be known, we all do.<\/p>\n The difference between some of us is that we just never get beyond the coal stage.<\/p>\n Now we can all clean up pretty good, but coal is still coal. It can be pretty and shiny on the outside if it’s cleaned up, but it still has the potential to leave dark marks on anything it touches.<\/p>\n John prefers to believe, like other optimists, that he can take his “coal” life and work toward perfection. Indeed, he says. “he will grow and glow ’til he becomes a diamond.”<\/p>\n There are those of us today that believe we are diamonds. Perfect, shiny, beautiful. It’s good that we are able to reach a point in our lives that we can say that. We’ve “polished up our rough selves” and work diligently to be a shining star.<\/p>\n Lest we get too sure of ourselves, life keeps us in check, though.<\/p>\n “Stuff” happens, and so he also talks about watching out lest we become vain. He says he keeps himself “kneeling and praying so he won’t get too sure of himself.”<\/p>\n Yep, songs can help you remember that you’re “just an old chunk of coal.”<\/p>\n I prefer to think of songs as helping you keep grounded. After all, it takes a lifetime and beyond for a piece of coal to become a diamond.<\/p>\n My wish for you today<\/strong> is that you take yourself from your simple beginnings to grow into something beautiful to share with the world…just like the sparkle of a piece of coal that turns into a diamond. It will take awhile and lots of patience but it’s worth it. Just keep yourself grounded and remember where you came from and where you’re going.<\/p>\n ~ Joellen<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I grew up knowing all too well what coal was. Let’s just say coal and I were “up close and personal.” You see, we used it for our main heat source in the front of our home. The structure was an old Camp Croft army barracks my mother and father bought after the camp closed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,16,27,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-religion","category-life-events","category-living-life-to-the-fullest","category-teenagers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/reflectionsfromacountrygirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/reflectionsfromacountrygirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/reflectionsfromacountrygirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reflectionsfromacountrygirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reflectionsfromacountrygirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/reflectionsfromacountrygirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/reflectionsfromacountrygirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reflectionsfromacountrygirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reflectionsfromacountrygirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}