Stronger Through Him

  The blossoms are exploding across the trees everywhere I look this week.  While ours might be on Bradford Pear and Red Bud trees, rather than apricot trees, I can't help but smile as the melody and lyrics of "Popcorn Popping on the Apricot Tree" plays through my head. It reminds me of a parable shared with me when I was newly married that paralleled the Parable of the Sower in Matthew 13.  "Behold at the time of harvest, the ears of corn did bring forth kernels which were dried and prepared for the Popper’s hand. And then it was that the Popper did take the kernels, all that did appear alike unto Him, and applied the oil and the heat. And it came to pass that when the heat was on, some did explode with promise and did magnify themselves an hundred fold. And some did burst forth with beauty which did both gladden the eye and satisfy the taste of the Popper. And likewise some did pop, but not too much. Behold, there were some that did lie there, and even through the ...