By Peggy Potter

 All scripture references come from the Tree of Life version of the Bible:
Acts 20:24 :  I don't consider my life of any value , except that I might
finish my course & the office received from the Lord Yeshua, to declare the
Good News of the Grace of God.
Matthew 20:28 : for the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve
& to give His Life as a ransom for many.

     Tuesday, 9/24, my neighbor Sally had surgery on her left arm & hand. Sally
had prayed with me last August to accept Jesus as her personal Savior.
  I felt prompted by Holy Spirit to go visit her as she was home, but I was
reluctant. At nearly 67 years old, I still work full time & was feeling tired.
Afterward, I felt terrible guilt! I begged God's forgiveness before going to
sleep that night.

    The next day, God gave me the chance to make it right. I put down the book I
had been reading when I felt Holy Spirit once again prompt me to call Sally!
I asked how she was doing. Sally was delighted to get my call & told me all
about the issues with her cast & the pain she was in, but she sounded like her
usual happy & friendly self. When my dog Annah realized just who I was talking
she got all excited & wanted to go see one of her best friends who absolutely
dotes on her. So I took Annah for a walk down to see Sally which apparently
made Sally's day as well as Annah's. I asked Sally if she needed any help, but
she said no. I think just making time to drop by was enough to brighten her day
which in turn, brightened mine & Annah's! I reminded her that I had been praying
for her, which is true, & would continue to do so.

    After that brief visit, I praised God for His Grace & Mercy & His second chance
to obey Him. It gave me great joy to see Sally & needless to say, I plan on dropping
by later today & offering my help again!

 Luke 17:10  so you, too, when you have done everything you are commanded say," We
are unworthy slaves. We have done only what we were supposed to do."

By Mary Spence

‭Malachi 3:2-4 NIV‬
[2] But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap. [3] He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver. Then the Lord will have men who will bring offerings in righteousness, [4] and the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be acceptable to the Lord, as in days gone by, as in former years.

Gold is most valuable when it is pure. To refine gold the goldsmith heats it to a very high temperature.  
Gold melts at 2000 degrees.  
Because it is very dense, when it is heated the impurities come to the top once it is liquified. Then the impurities are scraped off the top as it cools. 

Like Gold we are going through a process to sanctify us. The definition of sanctification is to make something holy; the action or process of being freed from sin or purified. 

When we think about being purified by God through a process of heating and scraping, heating and scraping, it doesn’t sound like much fun. 

But on the other side of the trials, once we have moved through that valley there is a better product. Just like the gold, which is becoming more pure and more valuable, we are becoming more like Christ though each trial and tribulation. 

In its purest form gold is soft and pliable, moldable and easy to shape. The hardness comes from added impurities like silver and lead, which are harder substances that help it resist bending and changing shape. 

As human beings we have our own impurities. Our life experiences, relationships and interactions in the world have caused us to erect walls of defense. We reinforce these walls each time we are rejected or wounded. Continuing to secure our hearts, making certain no one is getting in hardens our hearts and our walls get higher. In fact, they can become impenetrable, no weapon could pierce that armour. 

But in many ways we are the same as the gold.  As we are refined by our goldsmith our walls begin to break down. Those very walls we put in place to protect ourselves are crumbled into rubble and swept away. We become open, reachable and vulnerable. All the impurities we added to keep ourselves safe and protected were actually preventing us from being open to God changing our hearts.

Not really sounding like alot of fun, right? Its painful sometimes. We built all those walls for a reason. The world showed us that without walls and guards we were unsafe; open to injury and attack. So we reinforced the walls. Stonger, taller, unbreachable. To keep ourselves safe. 

So when he begins to purify us, to remove all of that excess stuff and make us more like Him, it feels uncomfortable. Its scary, to think that we will be open, unprotected. But isn’t this is how we are going to grow? To begin to evolve into who we were designed to be?

Gold starts as a rock in the ground. It is barely distinguishable as what we know as gold. The  lengthy refining process reveals the most valuable. As we travel through these times of trial and hardship, let's try to remember that the process we go through changes us. We can continue to work on our walls. Building those barricades around our hearts, becoming more removed, more distant, and disconnect. Or we can choose to walk through it looking for opportunities to reflect Jesus as we journey. We can be willing to submit to His plans and designs for our lives, so that we will be changed... refined.

Choose wisely my friend.
‭
[8] Praise our God, all peoples, let the sound of his praise be heard; [9] he has preserved our lives and kept our feet from slipping. [10] For you, God, tested us; you refined us like silver. [11] You brought us into prison and laid burdens on our backs. [12] You let people ride over our heads; we went through fire and water, but you brought us to a place of abundance.
Psalms 66:8-12
.

by Rebecca Vickery

​Twenty-seven years ago, I had my first encounters with the Living God. Codependency wasn’t a word
that I was familiar with at the time, but I already had the beginnings of it in a relationship I cut off before
leaving for the Czech Republic on an exchange program. I did not break things off with my boyfriend so
that I could find God, I did it so that he wouldn’t be idealizing me the whole time I was gone meaning I
would never measure up to the picture of me that he had formed in his head. I also didn’t want to be
constantly missing home instead of enjoying each moment that I had in this beautiful country.

Nevertheless, my ex-boyfriend wrote to me while I was in Prague. I was exposed to a kind of
codependency that was unfamiliar. I couldn’t fix things that were brought up in the letters. I was
helpless to make a difference and I was stuck. In one of the early letters, I learned that he was drinking
enough to kill himself. Maybe that was the point, maybe the point was to make me feel bad enough to
say, you can be my boyfriend, now stop the excess drinking so I’ll have a boyfriend to come back to.
Whatever the purpose, I couldn’t really do anything to change his behavior. He had a drinking problem
before he met me, and this good girl couldn’t sway him from the other side of the ocean.

Meanwhile, I had started going to an English conversation group at my Czech speaking high school
(Gymnasium as they called it). The Czech kids were mostly arguing against the existence of God, but I
reasoned that God existed, I just didn’t know how intimately involved He was with us. This was the first
time I’d ever had to reason about the existence of God. I grew up in the Episcopalian Church, and
thought of God as a distant creator who didn’t have much if anything to do with our daily lives.
At the same time, my host family held weekly prayer meetings called Taize worship nights at their
beautiful home. I had also been invited to a local Church service at an international Church in Prague. I
was receiving invitations to meet with God on every side. I started attending the Church and was invited
to youth group where they were actually studying the Bible. I had never really read it, and apart from
hearing snippets of it during the Church year according to the liturgical calendar, I didn’t know that
much about it.

The preaching was intriguing. The Pastor was teaching through the book of Isaiah. I told myself I went
back to the Church because of the music, contemporary songs that reminded me of Church camp. But I
think a deeper part of me was fascinated by the teaching of the Word. It Spoke to me.
The first time one of the youth group members invited me to study the Bible with them, I instantly
rejected them. The next week, I was invited by someone else. And then someone else. Finally, I said to
myself, these people, my peers, are actually reading this book and want to learn more from it, I have got
to see what this is about. So, I went.

There I was surrounded by people pointing me towards God, with a problem bigger than my capacity.
At Bible study this particular week, we were asked if anyone had prayer requests. This time, I slipped up
my hand. Afraid of judgement, I didn’t specify the specific nature of my prayer, but that my friend
needed help and that I was very worried for him. Later in the week, at my host family’s prayer meeting,
I decided to do some praying for him myself. I prayed with tears to a God I sure hoped was listening and
submit my requests to him in earnest.

The following week, I got a letter from James. He had given up drinking for lent. He had never
celebrated lent before, so this was a strange thing, but instead of instantly saying, “God, you did it,” I
was like, Good, now I don’t have to worry about it anymore. I went to Bible Study that week and they

were studying from John 4, the story about the Woman at the well. Our study leader talked about the
Living Water, and asked us a question.

“Are you drinking from the living water with a straw, or are you in there on your hands and knees
drinking all that you can?” At that moment, it occurred to me that my very specific prayers had been
answered. They were answered in a very strategic and timely way. I felt like God was showing me who
He was and I didn’t know what to do about it.

I put my hand up in the air and said, “I feel like God is saying, Here I am, come to me, and I have no idea
how to drink.” This was the first time I ever felt like the God of the Universe was reaching out to me and
calling me to Himself.

Later that week, my youth leader Toni met with me and heard my story and told me about Jesus of
Nazareth. She told me about how God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son so that
whosoever believed in Him would not perish but have eternal life. I had heard a similar message at
Church for years, but this was the first time it felt like a present truth, not like ancient history. God
wasn’t merely a distant patriarch, but a present reality, and He wanted to know me and be known by
me.

Toni asked me what I thought about this. I marveled, if Jesus came and died on a cross for me, now that
I know what this means for me, how can I not follow Him? And so I followed the Son and He led me and
leads me to the Father. I do not believe merely because Christianity is the only religion where we don’t
have to do xy and z to attain heaven because Jesus already achieved it. God did what only God could do.
He made the bridge to cross that divide, I only needed to walk across it in faith. Jesus is the way, the
truth and the life. Experiencing God was what led to that faith.

There have been many philosophical and theological challenges to my faith since then. I have had to, as
Peter says, be prepared to give an answer for the hope that I have. I believe the Bible is real, but more
than that, I believe that the God OF the Bible is real. He is the reason for the hope that I have. Every
moment that I come to Him and know Him more fully confirms my faith more and more. I believe that I
am known by the Living God, because I encountered Him myself. I didn’t go to the Czech Republic to
find God, but I found Him there in spite of me. I love Him because He first loved me. He ignited my faith
and lit the way to finding Him.

Seek the Lord while he may be found;
    call on him while he is near.
Let the wicked forsake their ways
    and the unrighteous their thoughts.
Let them turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on them,
    and to our God, for he will freely pardon.
Isaiah 55:6-7