Refining

I stopped blogging awhile ago. I told a friend recently it was because we had a bunch of junk to deal with (that was fairly consuming) and I couldn't blog about it. Since these issues seemed to take up all my thoughts, I felt like I couldn't be honest and was just putting on a facade if I was to blog. So I didn't. Then, recently, I was talking to another friend who had asked what was going on. Not much time had passed between the two conversations, but I suppose I had an epiphany of sorts. I answered with "It's been a long year of refining."

The imagery of being refined as silver is used throughout the Bible.

Hard times, hard people, hard situations, being stripped of comforting things, uncertainty, and loss sums up our life 'lately.' But the little hindsight I have now (and there is much more to come) shows me that it has been a refining process. One to bring myself and my family to our knees where we can do nothing BUT trust in God. And we are already seeing the fruit of this process in how we discipline our lives regarding time and money. In how we hunger for God's Word and depend on it to shape our lives; how much we have forgotten about what we have been given and how wrong our response is to it. There is fruit in our marriage and in our family.

This morning in church I cried during worship (singing). From spending more time reading the Bible and getting little glimpses of understanding about what He has done for us, the words in the songs were more alive. But what really got me choked up was an older couple. They sit through the service because it's too hard on their bodies to stand. I wasn't familiar with the song, but part of it was to the effect of 'When you call my name, I will rise." And at "I will rise," the older gentleman stood up. I cried because to me, in that moment, all pain and discomfort didn't compare to his love and devotion and desire to be truthful in the words he was singing. Maybe it was a 'had to be there' moment, or maybe you have to be me to see what I saw. I dunno. But I think the last time I allowed myself to be soft enough to cry during worship was when I was a teenager. That's awhile ago now haha. But through this refining process, God has brought me back to that place where it's more about Him. I have a massive way to go, but I thought I'd just share a bit of the fruit that God has blessed me with.

Awhile ago a friend sent me this email, I really enjoyed it. It's about a woman who went to a silversmith to learn how silver was refined to better understand why the analogy is used in the Bible:




As she watched the silversmith, he held a piece of silver over the fire and let it heat up. He explained that in refining silver, one needed to hold the silver in the middle of the fire where the flames were hottest as to burn away all the impurities.

The woman thought about God holding us in such a hot spot; then she thought again about the verse that says: ' He sits as a refiner and purifier of silver.'

She asked the silversmith if it was true that he had to sit there in front of the fire the whole time.

The man answered that yes, he not only had to sit there holding the silver, but he had to keep his eyes on the silver the entire time it was in the fire. If the silver was left a moment too long in the flames, it would be destroyed.

The woman was silent for a moment. Then she asked the silversmith, 'How do you knowwhen the silver is fully refined?'

He smiled at her and answered, ' Oh, that's easy -- when I see my image in it.'