Now that I'm a woman...

One year for my birthday or Christmas, I got a rock tumbler for as a gift. I was thrilled. I was ecstatic, actually. I just couldn't wait to see if what was advertised was actually true. I could put some rocks in a machine, let them spin around a few times and then poof, get some shiny stones that I could make jewelry with. It came with some necklace and ring settings and I was like a kid in a candy shop.

I found out that yes, I could use it but the process was much longer than I thought, messier than I thought, louder than I thought, and quite frankly, the jewelry was just some cheap junk that fell apart rather quickly. While the rocks came out looking pretty, my dreams of their worth were kind of shattered. LOL

Now that I'm a woman, it takes more than a polished rock to impress me. I've always been a girl who liked sparkle, glitter, shine, and shimmer. However, now, I know that stones have value based on characteristics.

Well, it's funny that when I was reading Fight Light A Girl, by Lisa Bevere some more, she actually talks about this very thing. I swear, this woman, is a girl after my own heart. She speaks my language. Forgive me for constantly quoting her so much but she says it better than I could by paraphrasing her.

Time passed and we bought Alec a rock polisher for Christmas. It consisted of a tumbler, rough stones, polishing mediums, and some accessories for setting the finished stones. Let the unaware be warned: A rock polisher is a time and noise commitment. First, you put the rocks in with one polishing medium, plug the thing in, and let it tumble for a few weeks before adding the second, finer medium and then the process begins again. There were many times when, alone in our quiet house I would experience a momentary feeling of panic...What is that noise coming from the basement? Then I would remember...It's the rock polisher. I became axious for the process to be over - why did if have to take so long?

Later she continues

There was a lot of scurrying and rinsing, and then the rocks emerged. They were shiny, smooth, and shockingly smaller versions of the stones we had put in. There was one in particular that caught my notice. Weeks ago it had gone into the polisher a dusty, rough-looking piece of amethyst, and now it was a small, shiny purple pebble. As I turned it in my hand to feel all the sides of its cool smoothness, I sensed the Holy Spirit speaking to me:

The stone you hold is the same chemical and molecular compound as an amethyst gemstone, but it differs vastly in value. This one cannot be set as jewelry, for it has no edges, facets, or fire. It is not unlike My children. There are those who go through the same process over and over again, until all their edges are dulled by the repeated experience. I love them and they are Mine, but how I long to recapture their fire, to give them facets, clean lines, and the beauty of captured light.

Wow. That struck a cord. Someone I love seems to be a tumbler. It's like they tumble through life reliving the same experience and while they may appear lively and fun and happy on the outside to others, their real fire and life and passion wants to be recaptured by God and truly restored to the brilliance that only He, the Artisan of their life, can give.

Lisa also says:

There have been many areas and lessons in my life where God wanted to produce a jewel, and I allowed Him access to only the rock polisher dynamic. Instead of surrendering , I whined and complained that life (He) wasn't fair. There were times I drew back when He invited me to come a bit closer. Other times, I clung to relationships He asked me to sever. In those seasons there was the constant hum of the rock polisher in my life. It turned around and around as I resisted the beauty that could have been realized in an instant of total surrender and obedience.

Wouldn't it be easier if I would learn to surrender sooner and then I could avoid the annoying sound of the tumbling polisher. Not that the process of fire is easy. Both in Zechariah 13: 9 and in Isaiah 48:10, God talks about the fire. Isaiah says:

Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver, I have tested you in the furnace of affliction.

Lisa said it would have been easier if God could have said he would test us in the sauna of the spa experience. LMBO! Ain't that the truth. What if I let God test me and came out as a diamond with the kind of clarity and color and cut and quality that others admire and value? Tested by the fire where my beauty comes out.

Goodness knows I've had my fair share of fire lately. To be honest, it hasn't been beauty that's been revealed during every moment of the fire though. If I value shimmer, glitter, shine, and sparkle as much as I say I do, and if my desire is purity, than I should value the fire of adversity and not choose the option of the repetitive tumbling process. What God, are you trying to teach me in all of this? There's a lesson here, and I want to learn it and be proven a child of Yours, strong and true.

One may ask what the difference is. I think a person in the fire says refine me, shape me and asks God, "what are you trying to teach me" and a person in a tumbler says "life isn't fair" and "why me" and "not right now, God".

Thoughts?