People know where to mine silver and how to refine gold.

Job 28:1 NLT

Happy Friday! Regardless of your beliefs, your politics, your opinions, today is a monumental day in history. May we set aside our differences, come together as one, and celebrate our nation!

Having said that, well, you know the drill. It is Friday, my favorite day of the week. Date day, for me and my sweet man, a visit to my hair wizard, who makes all things gray disappear, and the day where I join Kate Motaung and others, where we come together and write five minutes, on one word.

Today’s word: REFINE 

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The days were dark. I lay in a fog of haze. It was the first hardest days. The days when all I could summon was simply to survive.

To survive in the midst of The Refiner’s fire. In the flames there were things only I could see.

What danced in the flames, danced into my heart.

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My Bible, full of post its, underlined and highlighted words,

A good pen, with which to write.

The perfect journal, where pages lay flat.

Books stacked high, waiting to be read.

Titles, such as

Feast for Thieves, The Prayer Box, Atlas Girl,

Sand in my Sandwich, The Hardest Peace.

The Schooling of Claybird Catts, Praying for Strangers,

Life in the Hollow, Still Life With Breadcrumbs,

Simply Tuesday and Just Show Up.

Just to name a few.

Steaming hot coffee in hand 

Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups

Fuzzy Socks and Jammies too.

To refine oneself is to dance in the flames.

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The flames of unholy hard. When your eyes are opened, your heart will see, there is One dancing with you.

“There ought not to be any dust in the room at all. But this ballet’s so wonderful that I’m glad a little ‘dirt’ has been left. When I was still ‘healthy’ I saw almost nothing and didn’t think about anything. I didn’t even have dreams, not proper ones. Now I’ve got all this. And I feel that only now do I understand how wonderful it is to be alive.”

Thomas Montasser from A Very Special Year

How wonderful is to be alive. How wonderful is to dance in the arms of Jesus. A ballet through the Refiner’s fire where dust and dirt will drift away. And there in the midst, find gold.

Gifts of Grace