fire

A few weeks ago I looked at the effects of fire on gold. Fire burns impurities out of gold. and gold without it's impurities has more value than gold with impurities. gold refined by fire goes for a lot more on in the marketplace than any other gold. gold that proves itself to be real, not fool's gold, withstands the fire. in order for gold to have value, it has to go through the painful process of being burned in a refinery, melted down to a liquid form, in a state where it is completely reduced to reliance on the master craftsman to determine how he will shape the gold: will it become a ring, a necklace, a vase, a trinket? Whatever it is intended to be, it can easily become whatever form it needs to be. And, even after it has become a necklace or a ring, refined gold is more malleable than unrefined gold. Which means that at any point, the gold can be altered at will.

it shouldn't take a stretch of the imagination to think about this in our own lives. I never know why we have to walk through fiery trials, or go through things that hurt. I do know, however, that trials can makes us more refined, result in lives and hearts that have more value, and make us more malleable than we were before.