String Beans and Fruit

I had a discussion with my nephew last week about vegetables. We talked about their health benefits and in doing so I mentioned string beans. My nephew stopped me and said I can’t count string beans as a vegetable because they were a fruit just like the tomato. I said that is ridiculous, everyone knows that string beans are vegetables and to prove my point I began to poll the people sitting around us in the restaurant. EVERYONE agreed with me. Of course I got the wobbly head syndrome and said, “There you go smarty-pants what do you have to say to that?” His reply was “Well, everyone is wrong.” This debate went on for the entire meal and person after person agreed with me that it was simply ridiculous to think that string beans were fruits and not vegetables. This leads me to today’s Blog.

One reason we have disagreements with people is because in our minds we create this mold that we think all people must fit into and if they do not fit into this mold we say something is wrong with them. We have this preconceived notion of the way people should talk, dress and act and we have standards we put in place that we measure them by. If people do not measure up to our standards, we often critique them in a negative way. If they don’t do something the way we would we get upset. If they dress different or cut their hair different we say they are weird and if they are not as good at something as us we elevate ourselves and in the process we lower them. We even classify them based on the job they have or the type of house they live in. This should not be folks. Who are we to create a mold for a person and then expect them to fit into our mold? Shouldn’t we first realize that God created them and He is the one who should set the standard? We should accept people as they are, love them and help them become what God wants them to be, not what we want them to be. If we spent more time loving people as they are, understanding that is how God made them and spend less time trying to squish them into our self-made mold we won’t get upset near as often. Me? I tried to fit something as simple as a bean into a mold I made and even though I had everyone agree with me, everyone including myself was wrong.

String beans are fruits. Love people just the way they are, eat your greens and then…. Have a wonderful week!