Passing Torches, Part 2
"But Zion said, "The LORD has forsaken me, the Lord has forgotten me. Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you!" Isaiah 49:14, 15
The sickly young black orphan huddling in a stranger's barn probably felt abandoned by God and mankind, but this little child was destined to take up the torch and change the world, thanks to a slave named Libby.
Libby risked beatings to secretly teach other slaves, like Mariah Watkins, how to read. And years later, it was Mariah who found little George sleeping in her barn. He had come to their town to attend school, so she and her husband gave George room and meals in return for doing some chores. When George said he was lucky to have chosen her barn to sleep in, Mariah said, "Luck had nothing to do with it. God brought you to our yard. He has work for you and he wants Andrew and I to help you."
Be Like Libby Mariah told George, "You must learn all you can, then be like Libby." She taught George not only cooking, cleaning, knitting, and crocheting, but also the medicinal uses of herbs and roots. George learned all he could from Mariah, and from any school that would accept him. He eventually became director of Tuskegee Institute's agricultural experimental station. This so-called agricultural station had almost nothing to it (a
butter churn, sickly pigs, and worthless land), so George and his students scrounged together whatever they could and built a laboratory from the ground up.Open my Eyes, Lord Over the next 50 years, George Washington Carver was phenomenally creative, developing hundreds of products [see list at end] from peanuts and other vegetables. Where did he get his ideas? Literally straight from his Father! George rose every morning at 4 a.m. to walk in the woods, pray, and read the old Bible that Mariah had given him. And each morning he prayed, "Open my eyes, Lord, that I may see wonderful things out of your Word." When people asked why he was experimenting on okra, wheat and artichokes, he said, "because God told me to look there." The media and scientists ridiculed this "unscientific" approach, but they could not deny the results.
World Changer. Little George grew up to be adviser to three U.S. Presidents and international leaders like Gandhi, and friends of people like Henry Ford. The first U.S. national monument dedicated to a non-President was the 210-acre George Washington Carver National Monument in Diamond, Missouri, where Carver grew up. When he died, Carver left his life savings to the George Washington Carver Foundation. On his grave is written, "He could have added fortune to fame, but caring for neither, he found happiness and honor in being helpful to the world."
Libby would have been proud.
Passing the Torch. George probably felt abandoned during his sickly youth, but our Father said, "Can a mother forget the baby at her breast? Neither will I forget you." Isa. 49:14 God never forgot George--but he cared for the child through people like Libby, an unknown slave who passed the torch of courage and hope to Mariah, who in turn passed the torch to little George, who passed it on to us.
Who has our Father brought into your life to help you? And whom can you help? Accept the torch, run with it, mount up with wings as eagles [Isaiah 40:31] --and pass it on!
Supplement: Carver's Inventions
Over 300 peanut products, as well as hundreds from sweet potatoes, soybeans, and pecans. They include chili sauce, biofuel, buttermilk, bleach, adhesives, instant coffee, linoleum, mayonnaise, metal polish, meat tenderizer, paper and plastic, shaving cream and shoe polish, wood stain, synthetic rubber, etc. Sweet potatoes yielded 118 potential products, including rubber, 73 dyes, 14 candies, 5 breakfast foods, 5 library pastes, vinegar, coffee, etc. He also published 44 practical bulletins for farmers, and popularized many modern agricultural practices.
Carver's 8 Guidelines
- Be clean both inside and out.
- Neither look up to the rich or down on the poor.
- Lose, if need be, without squealing.
- Win without bragging.
- Always be considerate of women, children, and older people.
- Be too brave to lie.
- Be too generous to cheat.
- Take your share of the world and let others take theirs.
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