To my knowledge, there is only one statue in the world that honors a pest.  It is located down in the heart of Enterprise, Alabama.  The honoree is the Mexican Boll Weevil.  It is not so much the statue itself, but the circumstances behind it that are worth noting.

The problem started in the late 1800s when the boll weevil crossed the border of Mexico into Texas and quickly spread throughout the southern states.  Cotton is the favorite food of these little bugs which they found in abundance and partook of freely.  By 1915 the destructive little critters reached Alabama and devastated Coffee County.  The farmers of that area were hit exceptionally hard because they had pretty well become solely dependent on cotton as their cash crop.  The invasion of the boll weevil had left them deeply-indebted and the whole area financially depressed.

No one knew for sure what to do until the following year when one financially strapped farmer was persuaded to take a chance by planting peanuts instead of cotton.  The crop was so successful that it enabled him to pay off his debt and his success brought hope to the other farmers.  They learned from this to diversify their crops and not depend solely on cotton.  This change brought greater prosperity to everyone.  The citizens knew, however, that they owed it all to the pesky little weevil.  Thus stands the imposing monument today which bears this inscription: “In Profound Appreciation Of The Boll Weevil And What It Has Done As The Herald Of Prosperity.”

This story has always fascinated me.  In fact, it reminds me in principle of a lot of folks I have known before they were Christians.  Why?  Because these people had never seen a need to change their lives until they faced a “boll weevil” experience.  Then, once they saw how much they needed God in their lives, they were thankful for whatever it was that had opened their spiritual eyes.  They learned that God can turn any negative into a positive! (Rom. 8:28).  He can (and will) do the same for you, too!