Refiner’s Fire

“Fish cannot drown in water.
Birds cannot sink in air.
This has God given to all creatures,
to foster and seek their own nature.
How then can I withstand mine?”
~St. Metchild of Magdela

I have been pondering, praying, studying and writing about what it means to seek our original beauty for some years now.

One thing I know is that scripture tells us God pronounced all of creation good—until he created humankind. Then he said we are very good.

Yet, life happens. Something bad happens to us. Someone we love and trust hurts and betrays us. People and pets, we love, die. War and the state of this world scares us. Well meaning parents and teachers lead us along the worldly road of acquiring stuff and degrees that are supposed to give us all that stuff and somehow make us happy, and yet, we are not.

And in the disappointment, loss and trauma of it all, we turn our backs on our true selves, lose the dream God held for us as he knit us in our mother’s womb. We unwittingly trade the eye for authentic beauty for the tinny things of life.

The journey home to our original beauty, our original selves, can be long and arduous, with many naysayers along the many-switchbacked-route.

It rarely, if ever, happens when we’re young. It takes a sick-and-tired of being sick-and-tired sort of experience. It takes us getting to the point of crying out to God, “Isn’t there more?” at the top of our lungs or maybe mewling like a feral cat who hasn’t eaten in so long it’s practically gone insane.

It takes looking long and straight in the mirror and admitting that this is where we are. It takes wanting our original beauty more than anything the world has promised us. It takes not giving up no matter how many times we feel we have failed along the way.

I know this only because I have been there and am still on the journey. The Refiner’s Fire will not consume you. It will just burn a flame so bright you can’t help but find your way.

I know this only because I have been there and am still on the journey.
The Refiner’s Fire will not consume you. It will just burn a flame so bright
you can’t help but find your way.

I’m here for anyone who needs support along the way. Just PM me, or email
directly at Kimberly@KimberlyHighland.com.

Love, your sister along the journey,

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