Going Through The Fire

I looked at my kitchen windowsill and was brought back in time.
I saw three little bears, made of clay smiling back at me.
They are there all the time, though I sometimes fail to notice them.
I remember when the bears were made.

My youngest daughter loved to do any kind of craft project.
She enjoyed making bears out of clay.
Blocks of colored clay were bought at the craft store.
She went to work designing bears for each of us.

There was a bear with a briefcase for her dad.
There was a bear with an apron for me.
There was a bear with a basketball for her brother.
Each bear represented us in some way.

They are only about two inches tall.
Each has a smiling face; each bear sits contentedly.
Each bear was formed with precision.
After making each bear, the clay needed to be baked in the oven.

All these years later, the bears are as nice as the day she made them.
She was so proud of her ability to make something so personal.
She amazed me when she began to make the bears because she was quite young.
My daughter had a creative gift even then.

Another project she loved was designing magnets with Perler beads.
These breads can be bought in a large plastic jar.
She would choose templates on which the beads were placed.
Small cylindrical beads of various colors were painstakingly placed on little spikes.

Sometimes, my daughter would use a simple circle or square template.
On that plastic canvas, she would make her own design.
After each bead was placed, the template was carefully carried to my ironing board.
Each template was covered with special ironing paper and ironed.

The heat of the iron fused the beads together.
When it cooled, the entire design could be lifted off the template.
A magnetic strip was placed on the back.
The newly designed magnet went on the refrigerator door.

My daughter designed magnets for each of us, as well.
Some had our initials.
One was the American flag.
Another had a cross in the center.

Both crafts projects needed my help at the very end.
My daughter was too little to iron the magnet herself.
She was too little to get the metal pan with the clay bears out of the oven.
The heat was too much for her but necessary for the craft.

A dear friend sent me a copy of a page from a devotional she was reading.
It was after her mother had died.
The words touched her heart.
The words made her think of our friendship.

Are there some people in your circle of friends to whom you naturally go in times of trials and sorrow – people who always seem to say the right words and who give you the very counsel you so desire? If so, you may not realize the high cost they have paid to become so skilled at binding up your gaping wounds and drying your tears. Yet if you were to investigate their past, you would find they have suffered more than most other people. They have watched the silver cord on which the lamp of life hung slowly unravel. They have seen the golden bowl of joy smashed at their feet, and its contents spilled. They have experienced raging tides, withering crops, and darkness at high noon, but all this has been necessary to make them into the nurses, physicians, and ministers of others.

I had tucked this letter away for quite a few years now.
I happened to find it when I was looking for something else.
How I wish I could give credit to its writer.
What was written here is something God has already said in His Word.

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. (2 Corinthians 1:3,4)

Refiners fire.
Going through the fire of affliction and coming out as gold.
The fire that is meant to purify not destroy.
The fire that cleanses.

Heat made the soft, malleable clay firm so that the bear has lasted all these years.
Heat fused the beads on the template so that they made a beautiful picture.
All these years later, the magnets are still intact.
Heat was necessary to see the final beauty.

What we try to avoid at all costs may be just the thing we need.
We are malleable in the Potter’s hands.
We are painstakingly knitted together for His glory.
Without the heat, we would never see the beauty.

God knows that our troubles and sorrow will be used our good and His glory.
God knows that we will learn more about Him as we go through the fire.
God knows that we will learn to depend on Him to get us safely through.
God is with us, even, or most especially, then.

In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith, of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire, may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory, and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. (1 Peter 1:6,7)

We do not go through the fire alone.
God is with us, in the fire, in the trial, and in our grief.
After we come through, we are able to help someone else go through the fire.
We help them by pointing them to Jesus.

Who is going through the fire that may need the comfort that only you can give?
The heat produces beauty and something that will last.

 

One response to “Going Through The Fire”

1. I’m so glad you found this, how true. Beautiful Gina!

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