A Lesson from the Boll Weevil

 
   The Boll Weevil Honored in Alabama December 11, 1919
Can you imagine erecting a monument honoring an insect? Well, that's exactly what the people of Enterprise, Alabama, did on December 11, 1919, when they built a monument to the boll weevil, a tiny insect pest that devastated their cotton fields and forced farmers to pursue mixed farming and manufacturing. 
    The boll weevil is a beetle measuring an average length of six millimeters (shorter than the average length of the nail on your pinky finger). It's called the boll weevil because it destroys the cotton boll, the seed pod that contains the cotton. The parasite entered the United States via Mexico in the 1890s, and reached southeastern Alabama in 1915. Today it is still the most destructive cotton pest in North America.
The boll weevil forced farmers to switch to growing different crops, such as peanuts, which not only returned vital nutrients to soils depleted by cotton cultivation, but also was a successful cash crop for local farmers. Some farmers stubbornly refused to plant anything but cotton and they suffered for it, sometimes losing their farms. 
By mid-1921, the boll weevil had entered South Carolina. The tiny pest played a big part in the economic troubles of Southern farmers during the 1920s, and particularly during the Great Depression of the 1930s.
As late as 1939, Farm Security Administration photographer Marion Post Wolcott, on assignment in Wake County, North Carolina, noted the damage that the insect caused. Why do you think the people in Alabama built a monument to this pest? One reason is because it forced residents to end their dependence on cotton and to pursue the farming of other crops as well as manufacturing.     (Story from AmericaLibrary.gov)

      Psalms 46:10 "Be Still and KNOW That I Am God!!!". 
   The story of the Boll Weevil teaches us that God can take even all the bad things in our life and turn them into something positive for His glory. It is the perfect story for today and all we are going through because of a little deadly virus, called Corona. Corona may be strong and even deadly, but GOD IS BIGGER. We have a choice. We can allow social distancing and this virus make us afraid and control our lives. Or we can give it to the Lord and let Him use it to make us stronger in Him. Already we have seen some valuable and positive things happen because of this virus has come into our lives. Churches have been forced to think outside the box ad come up with innovative ways of doing "church". People are tuning into these services that would not normally even go to church. Many are coming to Christ and Christians are growing in their faith.  
               God has a plan - and He is still God!