so I'll ask you the same question I was often asked by parishioners in crisis:
just how strong do I have to be?
I don't know the answer to that one. Only God knows. I really wish I didn't have to be put through the fire many more times myself. Do I really need my Damascene steel be folded another hundred times? Wouldn't 400 times be enough? Why 600? Why 800? For that matter why would I need that much Damascening anyway? How much annealing does God expect?
I then ask, Just how perfect is perfect?
And then I realize how far off the mark I really am. I'm nowhere near to perfection; I'm still barely an ingot of impure iron. I've got so much more that could be done to work my life into what God might think it should be. Big sigh.
The hardest lesson to learn when you are a Christian is that the moment you ask God to make you into a better servant is when you are really asking God to put you through these trials. Be careful for what you ask for.
Still, unlike the non-believer who still goes through their own ups and downs of life, we have the comfort in knowing that God is there with us, leading us.
