The Pine Cone

My Mom sent me this analogy this last week. She is the Young Women's leader and they have been preparing for an activity to help strengthen the youth's testimonies.

Here's the analogy:

"Pinecones start out just a small little woody stem on the end of the branch of a pine tree. They grow and hide among the branches and needles as green, tight, sappy and sometimes sharp cones covered with a tough skin. They hold on very tight to the tree and are hard to pull off a branch. These cones provide a home for growing pine seeds. Although each pinecone is different, one cone can house literally a hundred seeds. They stay on the tree for a couple of years and are rarely noticed. If the tree is nutured right with sun, rain and nutrients from the soil, they will grow, with scales tightly closed, until these seeds mature. In time, the pinecones lose their greenish hue and gradually change to brown and russet as they dry out. Then one day, just like a bird fluffing it's feathers, the cone begins to open its scales. As the scales seperate from one another, they reveal the mature seeds. Not all fall out of the pinecone at once and some remain in the cone for two or three more years. Even a fallen cone frequently still has many seeds inside, but it is usually at this time when most people really notice pinecones, when they are old, dry and empty. Yet we hold value to them."

   "Our testimonies are like a pinecone. They start out ever so small, maybe hanging to a small portion of our parents or leaders or friends branch of their testimony. They might feel hidden or overlooked as they ever so gently start to grow seeds of faith, knowledge and experiences that fill us with desire for more. If we hold on tight to what we already know and nourish it daily with prayer, scripture study, spiritual experiences, our testimonies can grow and mature sometimes still unnoticed, but nonetheless, still growing and filling our lives with many different little seeds of knowledge. Maybe our testimony seeds will be about how prayers are answered, or how paying our tithing has blessed our lives, or how much our Heavenly Father loves us. Every testimony will be just a little different because nobody has the exact same experiences. Then one day, just like the pinecone, we open our hearts and our mouths and the small, yet maturing seed of testimony are shared with others in the simplest ways. By saying what we know to be true, by being the friend that someone needed, by just acknowledging the presence of the Holy Ghost, we are sharing ever so small seeds of our testimony and it feeds others. We start to realize and continue to build upon what we know to be true and more seeds are shared with others. And someday when we feel that we are dry and old and empty, we will realize that our testimony is our most precious and beautiful possession and it has blessed ourselves as well as countless others."

Just like pinecones each one of us are at different levels of our progression in the gospel. It is up to us to plant and nourish the seeds of divine testimony. It will take a little bit of work, but when our testimony opens up and is visible to ourselves and others we will treasure it more than anything else. The knowledge that we gain in this life is the only thing we will be able to take with us to the next. It will be something that we will treasure.