The Refiner's Fire
By Jon Mohr
There burns a fire with sacred heat
White hot with holy flame
And all who dare pass through its blaze
Will not emerge the same
Some as bronze, and some as silver
Some as gold, then with great skill
All are hammered by their sufferings
On the anvil of his will
The Refiner's Fire
Has now become my soul desire
Purged and cleansed and purified
That the Lord be glorified
He is consuming my soul
Refining me, making me whole
No matter what I may lose
I choose the Refiner's Fire!
I'm learning now to trust His touch
To crave the fire's embrace
For though my past with sin was etched
His mercies did erase!
Each time His purging cleanses deeper
I'm not sure that I'll survive
Yet the strength in growing weaker
Keeps my hungry soul alive!
The Refiner's Fire
Has now become my soul desire
Purged and cleansed and purified
That the Lord be glorified
He is consuming my soul
Refining me, making me whole
No matter what I may lose
I choose the Refiner's Fire!
To stay awake yesterday while driving, I pushed in the cassette in the car (Yes, our car is old enough to have a cassette player.) and this song instantly came on. It caused my mind to go back over everything that has been happening in our lives for the last few years.
In less than ten years, our family has had many medical/physical emergencies:
- a son unconscious after being thrown off a four-wheeler at work. There was a brain bleed and permanent hearing loss
- a son life-flighted to a Regional Burn Center because of severe burns.
- a son with a laceration to his eye, which entailed emergency trip to a University hospital
- several daughters-in-law have had multiple miscarriages
- aging parents, needing surgeries or being over-night in the hospital for medical needs
- this summer a daughter-in-law going home to heaven soon after having a baby
- Mr Wonderful having two shoulder surgeries, and yesterday removal of a Squamous Cell Carcinoma tumor from the top of his head. Which the doctor could only give a 90% success rate because of the way it had grown.
And this incomplete list does not even contain the even harder relationship crises.
There have been many blessings, yet they too are often through a refining process:
- grandchildren born
- a grandchild miraculously alive after a fall from a third story window
- a grandchild, whose arm was not broken when a swather drove over it
- parents moving nearby
- marriages
- relationships in the process of being restored
Then this morning listening to Revive Our Hearts podcast for today, Carrie Gaul shared...
I don’t know all of what that means, but at the very least it means, in the middle of your mess and my mess, this place is where we’re going to see God to do incredible things. It’s where we’re going to experience more of His joy and His freedom and His peace. It’s where we’re going to see Him!
Life is messy. Relationships are messy. Yet, God miraculously works to refine and mold us into His work through these "blessings." They are all blessings.
As Laura Story wrote in, Blessings
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