I hadn’t thought of it as a refining fire for myself but good fires always do that anyway, clear away the detritus of the past, the pile of branches much like the ‘stuff’ that just piles up: regrets, hurts, insults and self-pity. To quote a dear friend, “I truly believe we are shaped more by disappointments than blessings. They cut us to the core… Yet the challenge is to remain vulnerable to life, to others, to God....with no guarantees how it will all turn out. So true. Thanks for that.
Years ago when our boys were growing up they would listen, spellbound, to a recording of The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams, narrated by Meryl Streep. I listened to it again a few weeks ago with my grandsons and it had the same magnetic impact on them. Lowell sat on a stool next to the speakers and didn’t move for 40 minutes. The story of course, about a stuffed rabbit becoming real. There is a beautiful conversation in the nursery between the rabbit and the rocking horse that goes like this.
“Real isn't how you are made,' said the Skin Horse. 'It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.'
'Does it hurt?' asked the Rabbit.
'Sometimes,' said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. 'When you are Real you don't mind being hurt.'
'Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,' he asked, 'or bit by bit?'
'It doesn't happen all at once,' said the Skin Horse. 'You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand.”
Yes it hurts, but such is the refining process of becoming real, even if you do get loose joints and a bit shabby.