Coming Forth As Gold

Today was a thrift store shopping day – a fifty percent off day at one of the bigger stores that always does that on the holiday weekends. I had found a few things I wanted to try on – I always do that, something that I learned years ago with my mother at the old Filene’s Basement in Boston, you try on clothes right over what you have on, and even though it’s not a perfect look, you definitely can get an idea of whether or not it’s going to work when you’re used to looking at things that way. So I found my mirror and was just starting to try some things on when a woman came over and said, “Excuse me,” several times. I thought at first that she wanted me to move, but there wasn’t anywhere for me to move out of her way and she could have shared the mirror if she wanted to so I just kept on doing what I was doing. But she kept saying excuse me, and when I looked in her direction, she said, “Could I show you something? You have the height to wear it,” and she walked away and came back with a full length faux suede and fur lined coat. I had actually seen the coat on my own browse through, but I wasn’t looking for something like that, and I hadn’t seen how long it was. I thought it was a jacket, and even though I wasn’t really looking for a coat like that, because she’d taken the time to bring it over, I said thank you and put it aside to think about. Then she said, “Would you try it on? I think it’s just such a beautiful coat and I don’t have the height to wear it.” So I humored her and put it on and it did look beautiful. It was $9.99 with the fifty percent off, so I decided to splurge and buy it. I had the feeling in the store that I was going to wear it a lot – because it’s not real it will wear well and I can spot clean it and wear it in really lousy weather – and it’s really very glamorous looking but comfortable as a bathrobe. When I got home and tried it on again it looked even better, and I found myself thanking God for that woman. After she had given me the coat I didn’t see her again at all, and I’m wondering if she was just there to bless me.

I find some really amazing things at the thrift stores, and I’m really certain that the angels go in there before I get there and put things aside for me. I’m also amazed at the things that people donate and the things the people shopping don’t buy. I suppose a coat that long can only be worn by someone with height like mine, but for $9.99 it seems like something that everyone would be grabbing. But for some reason the things that are my taste no one is taking, and I have them all to myself. On my way home I wanted to stop by another thrift store I usually try to go to on Saturday or Sunday, depending on when I have the time, and on my way there I stopped by a yard sale and bought a beautiful flow blue and white porcelain bowl for a dollar. It was cracked and chipped and worn with age, but the glaze was still perfect, and to me it was truly lovely. When I bought it the woman said, “Oh, I’m so glad you liked this,” and I said it was gorgeous. She told me she had always had it out on display but that people thought she was crazy because it was cracked and chipped. I saw it the way she saw it – or maybe we saw it differently, but equally in a special way. The richness of the flow blue porcelain looks beautiful even if it’s just one small piece, and this bowl was a very unique shape and size, and the scene on the pattern was intact in spite of the wear of years. I think it would have been beautiful brand new too, but with the cracks and chips it had history and character and the blue glaze was so rich it glowed.

There’s someone who I love deeply and find so beautiful, but I think he wonders if I’m crazy for the way I feel. I don’t know for certain but I think he thinks he’s cracked and chipped and why would I want someone like that? But there’s something about the light that shines from within a person that all the cracks and chips in the world can’t hide, and just like that flow blue porcelain bowl, it’s all of the things that make up what a person is that make them so precious and lovely. When I looked up the word Porcelain, I found a page on Wikipedia that used words like “toughness, strength and translucence,” to describe it. The word resonant was also used, and a description of the high heat that is used in the kiln it is fired in tells us that the heat ranges between 2,192 and 2,552 degrees Fahrenheit.

In Zechariah 13:9, the Lord tells us, “I will bring that group through the fire and make them pure. I will refine them like silver and purify them like gold. They will call on my name and I will answer them. I will say, ‘These are my people,’ and they will say, ‘The Lord is our God.’” There are times in our lives when we will feel as if we are walking through the fire. But no matter how alone or lost or distressed we may feel, the Lord is walking through it with us. He is bringing us through the fire to give us strength and toughness and translucence, and He is making us resonate with His praise through the process. When we come through the fire we may still have some cracks and chips that we think have marred us for life, but when others look at us all they see is the glow and the beauty.

Do not be afraid of the fire – when God walks through it with you it is to bring you closer to His glory. In Job 23:10 we read, “But he knows the way that I take; when He has tested me, I will come forth as gold.” In Hebrews 12:29 we read, “Therefore, since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us show gratitude, by which we may offer God an acceptable service with reverence and awe; for our God is a consuming fire.” When we have been tested and have come forth as gold, we will be able to stand firmly in His kingdom which cannot be shaken, and we will never be moved.

Blessings,

Jannie Susan