Today for my lunch, I enjoyed two delicious peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. In fact, I’ve been going through the peanut butter so fast recently my family had to stock up on several jars of peanut butter from the grocery store tonight! There are so many varieties out there: regular, natural, organic…each coming in creamy or chunky options. Some people I know only go for the Peter Pan brand, others pick JIF, or maybe they just go for whatever’s the cheapest on the shelf. However, a few decades ago the food that has become a staple in today’s kitchen cupboard had not been created yet. True, the components for the food were all there, as God is the creator of all things, but no one had taken the time to ask Him how to separate the peanut until George Washington Carver came on the scene in the 1880s with a very important issue to resolve.
I focus on the way our lives have been affected today by this man, George Washington Carver, as I just finished reading a book from the Christian Encounters series that gave me an up-close glance at his life. Born a slave and orphaned at an early age, George grew up in his master’s home and took an interest in plants at a very young age. Though his body was physically weak all throughout life, he applied himself to whatever he was doing and did whatever he could to further his education. The majority of his life was spent working at Tuskegee Institute, a school founded to train black people in the South to learn a trade and make a living using their hands. Carver invested many years teaching the students agriculture and groundbreaking farming techniques. Carver loved working in his laboratory, because there he was able to go to God and make incredible discoveries on the crops that were growing well in the South. Carver had a special relationship with the Creator, and his creativity flowed out of his communion with God.
The book was very well written and approached Carver’s life in a respectful way. As a black man living in the South not long after slavery was banned, he endured a lot of racial prejudice and injustice throughout his life. The author made sure to include enough examples of Carver’s circumstances, experiences, and personal reflections. I found the pages full of information, easy to read, and worthy of my time. After studying this man’s life, I am very grateful for his self-sacrificing efforts to transform a field of potential into a world of prosperity. His life stands as a legacy of hope to all people that beauty can rise out of ashes and that much can be learned from God’s creation.
Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of George Washington Carver through Book Sneeze, in exchange for my honest review.
No comments:
Post a Comment