forged in fire

These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.
— 1 Peter 1:7 (NIV)
 
A little way past the chapel at Camp Eagle Rock is a blacksmith shop. Now, this isn't a huge, fully functioning blacksmith shop like you might picture from an old Western movie. There's a forge, some tools, and a great instructor who teaches us how to take a seemingly ordinary piece of metal and turn it into something beautiful.
A cross.
With our own two hands. The process starts with fire. That plain piece of metal goes into the forge until it gets hot enough to work with. Then comes the hammer. Heat it, hammer it, turn it, heat it again, hammer it some more.
Little by little, something begins to take shape. I watched the people in our group take flat pieces of metal and create crosses that weekend. None of them were exactly alike, some bends were a little different. Some hammer marks were deeper, some were smoother than others. Each one carried evidence of the process that created it.
And as I watched, I couldn't help thinking: we're shaped by the flame, too. Peter wrote about faith being refined by fire. I think most of us would prefer another method. I'd personally like to request the comfortable chair, cup of coffee and gentle encouragement method of spiritual growth. Unfortunately, some of the greatest changes in us happen when life gets hot.
Hard seasons, loss, disappointment, illness, uncertainty, plans that didn't work, prayers that weren't answered the way we expected, times when it feels like life has put us back into the fire again.
And sometimes, just when we think we've survived the heat...here comes the hammer.
But watching that metal being shaped reminded me of something important - the fire wasn't destroying it, the fire was making it possible to shape. And the hammer wasn't randomly beating it - every strike had a purpose.
The instructor knew where the metal needed to move, when it needed more heat and when it was ready for another strike.
Our lives aren't quite as simple as a piece of metal in a forge. Not every painful thing happens because God sent it, and suffering isn't evidence that He's standing over us with a hammer. But Scripture reminds us that the difficult things we walk through don't have to be wasted.
God can use them.
The season that nearly broke you may have deepened your compassion. The disappointment may have redirected your path. The struggle may have strengthened your faith. The thing you never would have chosen may have shaped something in you that comfort never could have produced.
And just like those crosses, none of us comes out looking exactly the same - we carry marks from what we've been through.
That's okay, those marks are part of the story.
An ordinary piece of metal went into the fire.
After heat, hammering, patience and the hands of someone who knew what he was doing...it came out looking like a cross.
Maybe there's something beautiful in that, too.
Because when life puts us through the fire, my prayer isn't simply that I come out untouched, it's that when I come out, I look a little more like Christ.
 
#dailybreadbykitty
Daily Inspiration from the Bible

He knows them

 
For every animal of the forest is mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills. I know every bird in the mountains, and the insects in the fields are mine.
- Psalm 50:10-11 (NIV)
 
You never know what you're going to find at Camp Eagle Rock. Over the years, we've encountered some interesting residents. There was a little iguana, a beautiful koi pond, a chameleon, and one year, there was a lovely tarantula.
I use the word lovely very loosely - I am terrified of spiders. Apparently Camp Eagle Rock believes spiritual growth sometimes requires facing your fears.
This year, however, we arrived to discover some new residents: goats and a donkey. Now, let's establish something else, I'm a little afraid of goats, too. But these guys were pretty hard not to like. They had their own pen, but much of the time they happily wandered around outside the main hall making friends with anyone willing to pet them. The donkey apparently believed he was a very large cat. He would walk up and rub against your legs looking for attention—and nearly knock you over in the process. The goats were quite convinced that whatever we were eating inside the dining hall should also be available to them. The children (and a few adults) wanted to take a goat home. No goats came home with us, as far as I know.
What struck me, though, was listening to the people who care for these animals talk about them. They know them. Not just the goats or the donkey. They know their personalities, their habits, which one will wander where, which one wants attention, what they need and how to care for them. These aren't simply animals wandering around the camp, they're known, they're cared for.
And standing there listening to people talk about how much they care for each one reminded me of something about God.
God knows His creation, not generally, personally.
If He knows the birds in the mountains, He knows the donkey rubbing against someone's legs. He knows the goats trying to sneak into the dining hall. He knows the fish in the pond. He even knows the tarantula. I'm going to trust Him to keep track of that one without my assistance.
But more importantly... He knows me, and He knows you. He knows our personalities and our habits.
He knows what makes us happy, He knows what frightens us, He knows when we wander, He knows when we need attention, He knows what we need before we even know how to ask for it.
Sometimes we can look at a world filled with billions of people and wonder how God could possibly notice one person and one problem in one little corner of it. But that's because we're thinking about God's ability to know us through the limitations of our ability to know each other.
God doesn't look across humanity and see a crowd, He sees His children.
Individually, personally, completely.
The people at Camp Eagle Rock don't just have some goats and a donkey, they have animals they know and care for.
And you aren't just another person wandering around God's creation either.
You are known, you are cared for, you are His.
And if He knows every bird in the mountains...
He certainly hasn't lost track of you.
#dailybreadbykitty
Daily Inspiration from the Bible

the kickstand

But He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.
- 2 Corinthians 12:9 (NIV)
 
Let me tell you about the motorcycle ride I took this weekend.
I went approximately zero feet.
Camp Eagle Rock is set up so several groups can be there at the same time. Our CMA group gathers at Gray Fox Lodge, where we have cabins, a big conference area, room for the kids to play while the adults do Bible study, a kitchen for snacks and—most importantly—a coffee pot.
The wonderful staff feeds us three very good meals every day and provides activities around the camp. Since everything is spread out, we use ATVs and dirt bikes to shuffle people back and forth. I was in the final group to go axe throwing. When we finished, we had three adults, one kiddo, two ATVs and Randy's Honda TransAlp.
Easy solution: I'll ride the TransAlp. After all, I ride a motorcycle. I've had my motorcycle license for years. This wasn't exactly my first time on two wheels. I climbed onto the bike, centered myself on the seat and leaned over to pick up the kickstand.
Except...I kept leaning. The kickstand never came up. And neither did I. I just flopped over onto my left side, effectively wedging myself between the TransAlp, an ATV and the ground.
I never started the motorcycle, I never put it in gear, I never moved an inch, I never even got off the kickstand.
The problem wasn't that I didn't know how to ride a motorcycle. The problem was that this wasn't my motorcycle. The TransAlp is taller than what I normally ride. Its weight felt different. Its balance was different. Where my feet landed was different.
I approached it thinking, I know how to do this. And technically, I did. But knowing how to ride didn't change the weight of what I was sitting on.
I think we do that in life, too. We look at something in front of us and think: I've done this before. I've handled hard things, I know how this works - I've got this. Until suddenly we don't.
Something shifts.
The weight is different, our footing isn't where we expected it to be. And before we've even gotten started, we find ourselves thinking, How in the world did I end up down here?
Maybe there's a reason God never asked us to prove that we can handle everything.
Paul asked God to remove something he was struggling with, but God's answer was, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
God didn't tell Paul to try harder, He reminded Paul where his strength came from.
There's nothing wrong with experience. There's nothing wrong with confidence. And there's certainly nothing wrong with knowing how to ride your own motorcycle.
But sometimes we encounter something that reminds us that our own strength has limits.
And maybe that's not failure - maybe it's an invitation. An invitation to stop saying, “I've got this,” and start saying, “God, I've got You.”
Because there will be things in life that are taller than we're used to.
Heavier than we expected, different from anything we've handled before, and occasionally, we may discover that before we've even gotten off the kickstand.
When that happens, we don't have to pretend we're strong enough. His grace is sufficient. His strength doesn't depend on ours, and sometimes the first step forward is simply admitting:
This is heavier than I thought.
 
#dailybreadbykitty
Daily Inspiration from the Bible
 

empty but full

Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.
— 2 Corinthians 4:16 (NIV)
 
I am tired. Not the I could use an extra cup of coffee kind of tired. I'm talking about the we just spent the weekend at Camp Eagle Rock kind of tired.
And it was wonderful.
We spent the weekend with our CMA family. Some were people who have been there before, and this year we had new people join us too. We studied God's Word together through Kyle Idleman's When Your Way Isn't Working, and some of those lessons hit pretty close to home. We worshiped, talked, and laughed. We made little crosses in the blacksmith shop. We threw axes. We rode ATVs and dirt bikes. We worked together on a 500-piece puzzle. We ate together, sat together, we simply did life together for a little while. And somewhere in the middle of all of it, God filled us.
That's the strange thing about weekends like this. I came home physically empty. My body is tired. My muscles know I did things they don't normally do. There are bags to unpack, laundry to wash, things to put away, and regular life is already waiting for us.
But inside? I'm full.
Paul wrote, “Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.”
I understand that a little better today.
Sometimes we think being renewed means resting until we aren't tired anymore. But maybe renewal isn't always about what happens to our bodies. Sometimes God renews us while we're sitting around a table with friends. Sometimes He renews us through a conversation we didn't know we needed. Sometimes it's through a Bible study that seems to speak directly into something we've been carrying. Sometimes it's through laughter, through worship.
Sometimes it's standing beside a fire, pounding a piece of hot metal into a little cross. And sometimes it's simply stepping away from the normal noise of life long enough to remember what really matters.
We went to Camp Eagle Rock with schedules, bags, motorcycles, helmets, expectations, and probably a few burdens nobody else could see.
We came home tired.
But somewhere along the way, God took some of those burdens and replaced them with something else: encouragement, connection, peace, joy. A reminder that we aren't walking this road alone.
Maybe that's one of the beautiful things about allowing God to fill us. Our bodies can be tired while our souls are rested. Our energy can be empty while our hearts are full.
Today I may need a little extra coffee, I may move a little slower, and that laundry isn't going anywhere, but I wouldn't trade this tired for anything.
Because sometimes you come home exhausted... and realize you've been renewed.
 
#dailybreadbykitty
Daily Inspiration from the Bible

tomorrow

 
For His anger is but for a moment, His favor is for life; Weeping may endure for a night, But joy comes in the morning.
- Psalm 30:5 (NKJV)
 
I love sunrises and sunsets. I feel like some of God's most beautiful paintings are put right there in the sky for us to simply look up and see. But maybe the best thing about a sunrise is this: Every sunrise is evidence that yesterday ended. Whatever happened yesterday—good, bad, exhausting, disappointing, frightening, or just plain boring—it eventually ran out of hours.
Then morning came.
Psalm 30:5 reminds us that weeping may last for the night, but joy comes in the morning.
Have you ever considered how often we talk about “tomorrow”? Even Scarlett O'Hara did it in Gone With the Wind: “I'll think about it tomorrow... After all, tomorrow is another day.”
I'll deal with it tomorrow.
Maybe tomorrow will be better.
I'll try again tomorrow.
We'll see what happens tomorrow.
But eventually...tomorrow comes. And sometimes nothing dramatic happens when it does. The sun simply rises while we're going about our ordinary lives.
A couple weeks ago, I caught a gorgeous sunrise on my way to work. There was no beach, mountain or beautiful lake in front of it. There was a parking garage. And yet, there behind all that concrete was this spectacular sunrise.
Sometimes we're so busy waiting for the beautiful season, the answered prayer, the perfect circumstances, the vacation, the weekend, or the next milestone that we miss the beauty God put right behind the parking garage.
God doesn't require a beautiful setting to create a beautiful moment. He doesn't need perfect surroundings. And neither do we.
So don't wait for the perfect view to start looking for Him. Look for God in the ordinary places. Look for Him on the commute, at work, in the backyard, behind the parking garage. Because God is present in an awful lot of ordinary life when we're paying attention.
And if yesterday was a hard one? Look up. Tomorrow came.
 
#dailybreadbykitty
Daily Inspiration from the Bible

still growing

But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in Him. They will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.
- Jeremiah 17:7–8 (NIV)
 
This year, I decided to plant a garden. I already had the raised beds, thanks to my handy husband. All I had to do was fill them with dirt and seeds, water them, and watch everything grow.
Well...that was the plan.
The carrot seeds were eaten by some critters—I suspect the Backyardigans. My zucchini fell prey to the dreaded squash bugs, quickly followed by the cucumbers. The green beans were amazing producers, but the strawberries became snacks for little grubs. The chickpeas were kind of “meh,” and we haven't dug up the beets yet, but they aren't looking very promising.
The tomatoes, though? Good grief. I had tomatoes for DAYS.
Then the rain stopped. And it stayed gone long enough that cities began asking people to conserve water and burn bans started popping up. The garden stopped getting watered. The ground became dry. Rain was scarce. Everything started looking a little thirsty.
Then we got a few sprinkles. And later, a few more. And apparently that was all my tomatoes needed.
They're still growing.
Jeremiah 17 describes someone who trusts in God as a tree whose roots reach toward the water. When the heat comes, it doesn't have to be afraid—and it keeps producing fruit.
We have dry seasons, too. Seasons when prayer feels harder. When answers don't come. When we're tired. When life isn't particularly exciting. When we don't feel like we're flourishing. But apparently my tomatoes didn't get the memo that there's a drought. They're just out there doing tomato things. Maybe that's because what matters isn't only what's falling from the sky. It also matters where the roots are finding their water.
Our circumstances may be dry, but we don't have to dry up with them. When our roots are deep in God, He can continue growing love, patience, kindness, faithfulness and peace in us—even when the conditions around us aren't ideal.
You don't have to look like the season you're living in. Stay rooted. Keep growing. And keep producing fruit. Even in a drought.
 
#dailybreadbykitty
Daily Inspiration from the Bible

stop feeding the fire

Without wood a fire goes out; without a gossip a quarrel dies down.
- Proverbs 26:20 (NIV)
 
My handsome and amazing husband is perfect for me. We're one of those couples who will ask, “What do you want for dinner?” while already knowing exactly what we want. In fact, we have a rule in our marriage: You can't ask the other person what they want for dinner unless you have at least one suggestion of your own. Saturday night, Randy wanted steak. Not unusual for a weekend, and he's a really good grill master, so I was completely on board. Simple plan: Fire up the grill. Cook dinner. Eat steak.
Except apparently, sometimes good grills go bad.
We went outside to find smoke and flames rolling out of the grill. The lid was so hot we couldn't lift it. We immediately shut off the propane and started dousing the flames. It got hot enough to melt the dials off the front and crack the glass window.
Needless to say, there was no steak dinner Saturday night. But later I thought about what we'd done. We didn't stand there arguing with the grill. We didn't keep trying to cook the steak because that was the plan. We shut off the fuel source.
Sometimes the smartest thing we can do spiritually is stop feeding the fire.
An argument. Gossip. Anger. Resentment. Social media drama. Someone who keeps baiting us. Even our own thoughts replaying something somebody did six months ago. Sometimes we keep supplying the propane and then wonder why the flames won't go out.
Some fires don't need us to fight them. They need us to quit fueling them.
Saturday night, we disconnected the propane before anything serious happened. We lost a grill and a steak. (Although apparently the steak wasn't a total loss. One of the Backyardigans thought charbroiled beyond recognition was perfectly acceptable).
But that burned-up grill left me with a question worth asking:
When something in my life starts burning hotter than it should, maybe my first question shouldn't be, “How do I put this out?”
Maybe it should be: “What am I feeding it?”
 
#dailybreadbykitty
Daily Inspiration from the Bible