FIRE!!!
Pat’s Story
My friend of over 40 years, Pat, and her husband recently experienced a great loss — their entire home and its contents were burned to the ground, only ugly black ashes remained.
They’d been traveling to visit a daughter, her husband and new granddaughter, Bea.
When they returned to California from Texas, their home was GONE, totally GONE. All they had left were the clothes in their suitcases.
It’s been a year of grieving what was lost,
turmoil in knowing what to do next,
displacement as family took them in,
disorientation in learning new households as they began house and pet sitting, moving every couple of weeks, returning again to family as they did all of the insurance paperwork and estimates for a re-build if they were able to do so.
Can you imagine not even having your own space to cook your special dietary needs or to keep track of all of the paperwork for the insurance, building permits, estimates and plans? Horribly disorienting, to say the least.
It’s been over a year….even though they could see God’s provision at the beginning, now impatience is creeping in — discontent, grumbling, anger and lashing out. Pat knew she needed God’s help to rid herself of the rubble she was experiencing in her own soul.
A women’s retreat was coming up but Pat did NOT want to attend. She forced herself to go and discovered God anew there. She found other women who loved her, prayed for her and plan to keep in touch , praying as Pat’s living situation changes and stabilizes.
May the fire that turned her home into rubble, be a refining fire for her heart.
May WE experience that refining but without such a great loss. God is faithful, He will do it!
And I am sure that God who began the good work within you will keep right on helping you grow in his grace until his task within you is finally finished on that day when Jesus Christ returns.
Philippians 1:6
WHAT IS A REFINING FIRE?
According to google, A refiner’s fire does not destroy the metal, rather it allows the junk within to come up so that it can be removed. A refiner’s fire does not consume, it makes the metal better and more valuable. This comparison helps make sense of what God’s redemptive work may look like and accomplish in each of us. God will purify us in similar ways.
Job was in the refiner’s fire of difficulty for a long time. But in the end, God blessed Job in a far greater way than anyone could imagine. Sometimes we face unanswered prayer and persistent trials as God chooses to refine our character. He wants to bring us higher in resurrection power, faith, and fruitfulness.
