Through the Fire

An old friend stopped by tonight to buy my last 10 books for her friends and family and stayed to tell me how God shines through the stories in Crickets and Thunder. Through the losses and separations over a lifetime, she said there was always hope shining through. "I need reminding now," I told her.

She talked about the power of brokenness using a couple of natural illustrations like fertilizing a garden with manure. Odd, how something as vile and distasteful as feces produces beauty in God's order, isn't it. After she left, I felt bathed in my soul, nourished by her words.

I think we may never fully grasp these things: the power of prayer, the power of our words to lift the soul, and the power of suffering to produce life.

And even as I sit here pecking out these thoughts, curiously, I'm listening to a PBS special called Life on Fire about the  islands of Papua New Guinea, where I spent four terms living in a jungle tribe. The images and thoughts are intertwining with my own,  like leaves landing on a river.

I've been watching colorful footage of a thousand giant megapodes soaring to the desolate wastelands of volcanic islands. They are strange and ugly birds that look like a cross between a chicken, a turkey, and a vulture, yet they have learned to survive in such harsh and desolate places. In fact, they depend on such conditions. 

These odd and little known creatures have survived by learning the benefits of laying their eggs in ground scorched by fire. Turns out, it is the perfect temperature to incubate eggs! And because there's no other known value in these ashen shorelines, no one else is trampling over the ground to endanger their nested infants, these seeds of hope for the future. 

Even these scroungy predators have a God-given wisdom in His ability to bring life out of the ashes. Why can't I?

What a great reminder! This is His specialty. 

We can trust Him in every area!
He is always at work,

even beneath the surface,
and through the fires,

in times of loss or isolation,
like seeds of hope planted
on ashen shorelines,  

Let hope shine through it all!