The Fire

 I've felt quite weary as of late.  Not just emotionally, but very much in a physical sense.  My heart has been aching at the thought of leaving so many people who I care so deeply for, and who care for me.  I have never been good at saying "good-bye's" and have been dreading them so much.  My body has been giving me such problems.  So much pain has been wrecking me...pain that's coming with no warning and with no reason.  I've been kept up late at night crying out asking for relief, asking God to do something.

Much of me has been wanting to just have the calm, to not walk through life with so much pain and so much hurt.  Really what I'm desiring when I ask for the calm, is to not be stretched; I'm not wanting God to allow things to happen in my life that are painful.  I'm not wanting Him to work and to move and to change me.  That's really what I'm asking when I desire the calm.

I sat with a woman this week, and fellowshipped with her in her home.  It's was a wonderful time of fellowship and encouragement.  We both talked about the things we have walked through in our lives recently.  Not the easy, but the painful.  We shared with one another the hardships, the difficulties, the strains that have occurred.  We then shared the ways God has worked through all those situations.  The way He has moved and changed things, the way He reveals Himself to us in a very different way, and how much deeper we grow in our relationship with Him, our Father.   We became thankful.  Thankful for the pain and hurt, thankful that we were just a little bit closer to our Abba.  We've come to know Him in a way that we wouldn't have if we had not just walked through that fire.

The fire refines us.  God reveals Himself to us in a very different way when we are walking through that fire.  We see some new part of Him or understand something we didn't before.

As difficult as it is, I'm growing and learning to be thankful for that fire.  I am learning to be thankful for trials.  My heart desires to know God more and more; I want my heart to look like His heart.  At times, we have to walk through the fire to have that happen.

My prayer, for myself and for you is that we might grow to love God so much more, that we would desire to have His heart, and that we might come to a place where we are thankful in whatever situation we are going through.