The Fire

Please read past the intro - and if you must, skip the intro and go to the second part. You will be glad you did. 

Happy Monday, or Tuesday, depending on when you are reading this. First, you should know that I have a stomachache. Why? I don’t know, you just should.  Second, I am going to apologize for my lack of writing. Things have been CRAZY as of late and I just have not had as much time as I would have liked to peruse this writing adventure, BUT alas here we are and we are back in business.

1.     I failed at April’s cooking challenge – I made exactly NO bread. None. Maybe this month? Who knows… I did make 90 Tres Leche cupcakes though – and boy were they yummy!

2.     Orange was amazing – a post THIS week to follow.

3.     Change - it's happening. POST BELOW.

Beautiful melody? Can you hear it right now? It is the music that is being played as I transition into my actual blog posting for today… La da deeeee la la la deee daa de la de daaa…

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Change. We all go through it but sometimes it is hard to see the end when the present is so vividly staring right at you.  The past few months have been wrapped with change and transition for Grace.  Grace is my church, my faith community, where I worship. It’s my friends, my family, my work… it is a HUGE part of my life – the biggest in fact.

To put it most simply Grace is going through a shift, changes are happing and transitions are taking place. It is not an easy time. Now, does this mean it is not a good time, no, it just means it is not always simple.  The bar has been raised, the match has been struck, and we are on the ‘move’.

I recently read a novel about a woman who falls in love with her perfect cowboy (ha, now do I wish this was me, maybe) back on topic – In this novel the cowboy works a ranch…cows, horses, the works. Well part of being a rancher is keeping up the land and with this comes great responsibility. In order to keep the land fertile for new growth and substance for the animals, great, sometimes seemingly crazy things have to happen. One of those things goes something like this: light a fire, burn everything back down to dirt, re-soil, re-till, re-plant, re-do.  It seems to me that for the most part we try to avoid burning things down- we go out of our way to prevent wild fires, house fires, land fires, but in this instance the fire is the very thing that is required for maximum potential of the land.

The match is flung into the fields and the fire begins to burn. Before you know it you are feeling heat like you never have before, so hot that it seems unbearable to face. It burns and maybe even for a moment you fear that it might lose control.  Then, after the flames have gone down and the smoke has billowed through the air you begin to start breathing again, but only then to notice what looks like complete devastation.  Ash and dirt blow through the air, and smells of scorched earth fill your nostrils.  Its ugly, its messy to the touch.  This period of in between wraps your heart with sorrow because what is now black used to be filled with green fields and summer sunsets.  This is the real test, can you see beyond the black, the ugly, the burn and remember that it is what lies beneath it all that matters? That after the rain and thunderstorms have passed, washed and nourished the land that something magnificent will happen. Just like that, one day as the wind blows, the smallest trace of life will break through the dirt and before you know it fields of green will be all that you see…

This is what I believe is happening right now as change and transition become a big part of our daily lives, at least speaking for myself.  We are facing times that might not be easy, that might be hard for us to face, and that might at times seem unbearable. Through it all it might seem ugly and to some like complete devastation.  But what I try to remember every day is not the green fields or the summer sunsets of yesterday, but the new growth that will bust its way through the dirt completely unexpected, beautiful and completely nourished. Then, before you know it life and growth will be so abundant that people will not even remember the fire that almost consumed them. 

The match has been struck, we are facing the fire, and I am nothing but ready to see how God uses this time to prepare us for something bigger and greater than we could have imagined otherwise. 

Much love my friends and to anyone who is facing the fire, 

Sara