Arich German woman knew she was about to die … and she shuddered.
No, she wasn’t afraid of dying. As far as she knew, she’d been a good, kind person,so she had no sense of guilt in her heart. But she was worried about her bones.
Cemeteries where she lived were extremely crowded. Asa matter of fact, poor people could rent a grave spot, place their departed relatives in it, and twenty years later someone would remove the casket and rent the grave to others.
«I don’t want my bones disturbed,» the woman announced. So she gave clear instructions as to what would happen to her body after she died.
Everything was done exactly as she ordered. She had a gravesite purchased, not rented. Her casket was laid deep in the ground and, with large slabs of heavy marble placed over the spot, bound together by iron bands. «This grave has been purchased for all time and is not to be opened,» said a plaque on the site.
Time passed. One spring a little seed from a birch tree fell beside the grave. Rains came,and the seed sprouted. Before long,a root found its way along the imperceptibly small space between the two blocks of marble. Seasons came and went.
The root grew and grew until one day the caretaker stopped by to examine the grave and noticed that the iron bands were broken and every block moved out of its place pushed by the power of the little seed.
Jesus once said, «The seed is the word of God» (Luke 8:11). Get it?