Through the Fire

Fire.

Burning with fury deep in the night I stare into the depths of the flame

I feel it proclaim ‘I am you’ … I freeze with fear and forget the fire that burns in front of my eyes

Instead I see the despise of my life, my heart and my soul, laid bare before me

‘How can it be’? I question myself, ‘how do I hate this this heart fate has assigned to me?’

But I do. I see my heart and despise the weakness that is ever before me, the scars that will not ignore me, the doubts that do so implore me

I bore myself to death my emotional health it drones on and gone down the drain like a poison

It spreads, this time I dread, I feel like I’m dead but death knocks still upon the door and so I look

My heart and soul in the fire I see my desire, to this I aspire, one day I’ll be hole… one day I’ll be healed

So as I stare into the fiery depths of my regrets it starts to fizzle out like a bout of rain pours on my day

I kneel on the grass and pray, I feel my past wash away and then the rain blows into the night

A spark, A small flicker of flame flirts from the depths of my heart and a passion rises within me

The fury turns to love, despair turns to delight, my darkness turned into light, all within this fire burning in the depths of this night

~ Kaleb 

I wrote this above poem this past week after burning some brush in my back yard. It made me think a lot about "going through the fire" and what that means for people. Traditionally to say that you are going through the fire it means you are going through a rough time and you cannot wait to get out of it. It means you are in the hard times in life and you wish you weren't... I think we have had it all wrong from the start. Through a conversation with a good friend of mine I have realized this more and more, going through the fire is a blessing, not a curse. While it hurts to go through hard situations, while learning lessons the hard way is, well, hard... It is worth it. It is the only way and the best way to learn. We see scars and we hear stories and we apologize to those who have them, we hurt for them... We hurt for ourselves... 

While I will never be happy for friends who are going through the fire, more and more I am realizing that it is a blessing. It is gains through pains. We cry out to God and ask how he could put us through this?! How could he do this to us?! Doesn't he love us?!.... And all the while, he does, he is, he always will. The pain is temporary, but the lessons we learn and the character we build is unimaginably stronger. 

I was at a college graduation (for my sister and cousin no less), the commencement speech was one of the best I've heard. In this speech the speaker said a phrase that her grandfather told her, a phrase I'm not likely to forget. She said "Sometimes mans' rejection is God's protection"... For all of you who are going through the fire, remember that the flames are temporary but the knowledge and wisdom you will gain from pushing through is incomparable.