So Africa has been so amazing so far. Leaving Zimbabwe was really hard. I loved our host family and what we did. It had been among my favorite months on the race! Also, I realize the videos are lacking. Wifi is stagnant so you probably won’t see anything until post-race, which is the end of NEXT MONTH! Also, this blog was really easy to pun around with…so just go with it 🙂
One Sunday afternoon, we went to Girls’ College. We hung out with girls, played games and talked in small groups. I loved it and thoroughly enjoyed it! In my small group, things got real, real fast. Some of these girls felt comfortable enough to pour out some very vulnerable parts of their life. It’s hard to hear how common abuse is among this group of girls aged around 15-17. I opened the floor for questions of any kind. One girl asked how she could trust people (which is funny because trust is a hard thing for myself). Another girl asked why God took away people in her life that were so close.
One question and answer that caught my attention was why God puts people in our life that will hurt and abuse us. Dang, I was at a loss for words. How do I answer this??? Dear Lord, give me something, anything! We sat in silence for a second. If I didn’t feel like God was giving me words from Him, I wasn’t going to speak. Before I could think of anything, the girl from Young Life Zimbabwe next to me spoke. This girl spoke some fire too! Pun intended. She goes on to say that jewels go through an intense process to become what they are. They get put in a fiery furnace so that the rough edges can be chipped away and it can be made into something beautiful and new. She goes on to say that maybe these people are her fiery furnace. They are being used to chip away the rough and make her into something new and beautiful.
Someone earlier this month brought up what silver goes through to become what it is. It is very similar to what I mentioned above. The lady said that she was curious so she went and watched someone refine silver. The guy there told her that it has to be put into blazing hot fire to burn and melt away the unwanted. The guy also told her that he couldn’t take his eye off the silver until it was done. If he did, it might get ruined. He had to stare at it through the whole refining process. The lady asked how he knew when it was done and he replied, “when I see my reflection, then I know it’s done.” Hold up. Isn’t that amazing?! Because wait for a hot second (pun intended), isn’t that what God does? (For you, O God, have tested us; you have tried us as silver is tried. –Psalm 66:10). He may allow us to endure some intense and rough times but He never stops watching us. He is always keeping His eye on us until our time in that trial is up. (And I’m sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. –Philippians 1:6). And do you know how He knows that the time is up? He can see Himself in us. What’s even cooler (pun intended) is that He is in the fire with us. He’s in the furnace and He doesn’t just watch. He gets right down there on our level and walks through the depths of the fire in the valley with us. Amazing.
We are the silver being refined, my friends. In fact, scripture calls us more valuable than silver. In the eyes of the Lord, we are a precious treasure immeasurable to any jewel on the face of this earth.
“And I will put this third into the fire, and refine them as one refines silver, and test them as gold is tested. They will call upon my name, and I will answer the. I will say, ‘They are my people’; and they will say, ‘The Lord is my God.’” –Zechariah 13:9
Thank you for all of your continued love, support and prayers! Final stretch!
Much love,
Brittany
