In our home we have no less than three ways to keep warm besides putting on more clothes! For as long as we have lived in our home, we have heated it with wood. Our heat has been hard earned. We have had to saw the wood into usable sizes. We have had to stack it in a shed, we have to carry it to the house, then we have to carry it to the stove. Lastly, the ashes must be taken back outside.! We get lots of exercise and warming heat from the wood. We "love" our stove and the heat it gives us. More recently, a few years ago, our sons started to think that someday we might need a different plan as we grow older. They gave us a pellet stove and we have really appreciated it. This year, another plan for heat was given to us. We now have a furnace that actually works and a sealed wind proof foundation. All the improvements have been greatly appreciated. We are so very thankful for sons that care for us and want only the best for their parents. Every time they come to visit; they leave behind things that have been improved for us! And easier for us! They leave things that exhibit their love.
This winter we have used all three forms of heating! We have had no excuse for not being warm! Last week, we were using the wood to keep our home warm. My husband usually carries some pieces of wood to the stove from a wood box located in our entryway. Then, because he has balance problems, he uses a folding chair in front of the stove to sit on as he places the wood into the stove. We try hard to keep a bed of coals in the floor of the stove to place the new wood pieces on so that we don't have to rebuild the fire each time. I can't carry the wood in my arms, I try to balance a few pieces on the shelf of my walker and then I give the wood a big shove/throw it into the firebox. That works for me--usually! This time, Garry decided that if it worked for me, maybe he could try the shove/throw technique.
Apparently that technique doesn't work the same for two different people. Suddenly, I heard a commotion and a very loud voice saying, NO! Oh NO! Noooo! And that was at the same time as stomp, stomp, stomp, No! No! Noooooooooooo! You can probably guess that the cause of the excitement was a large glowing coal had jumped out of the stove and avoided landing on the stove pad and the rug that I have in front of the stove to keep coal emergencies from happening. Instead, this coal of fire avoided being safe and landed on our fairly new laminate flooring and broke into many glowing coals. The floor is not immune to fire! Time was of the essence! And no matter what he tried, the coal was escaping from him. Finally, he was able to get things under control, but was very worried about having ruined our newish floor. Recovering the floor was an intensive process for him. He swept! He mopped. He scrubbed vigorously with strong effort--on his hands and knees. He wore holes in the rag. Lastly, he took some sandpaper and carefully sanded and sanded!
There wasn't anything he would let me help with and I'm not sure I could have helped anyway. But at the end of all his great effort, I would dare anyone to find where all the trouble happened. He was able to restore the damage--the fire scarred floor--back to almtost normal looking. God takes our scars of sin and works to restore us back to no scars. He will take them all away and make us healed and whole again.
Satan hurls and throws fiery darts that cause us to sin. Every dart leaves a scar on our life. Those are scars that Jesus can remove, take away. Just as the scars on our floor were removed and taken away. Sometimes Satan hits us with his darts because we don't stay close to God. But when we surrender and get back to God--He erases our problems, just as the burned spots from the fiery coals needed to be erased. Sometimes the scars from the darts take a lot of work to erase. God wants us to remember what we did that caused the trouble, the repair and punishment aren't easy for us to endure. Our mistakes are stressful. We have let Satan do great damage to our hearts. But we can have faith--God can repair us, we are salvageable, we can go on and know that we can be of use to God. No one will know that we were once damaged. He will shield us from further hurled darts if we stay close to Him.
This incident reminded me of a story that I read this week.
An elderly lady told a pastor she had been thinking of him and that she wanted to help him to make his transition to his new parish, so she wanted to give him a gift. When she handed him the box, she said that she had had this for a long time, but never used it. It was a brand new, old thing. And it was covered in dust. It was a toaster.
Now the pastor didn't have the particular habit of eating toasted bread, but this new equipment - this new appliance - caught his attention. He took it out of the box in his kitchen. It was all dusty. And he plugged it in to see how it worked. He pushed the button and it started heating immediately. When the heating element warmed up, many tiny cockroaches came out of the toaster. The pastor had his flip flop, so took it and started squashing everything. And then threw everything away. He was very, very scared. After recovering from the shock, the pastor had learned a lesson; when the fire ignites, the cockroaches of life come out.
This reminds me of a verse in the Bible that says, ‘Dear friends, do not be surprised after the fiery ordeal that has come unto you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you, but rejoice in as much as you participate in the sufferings of Christ. So that you may be overjoyed when His glory is revealed" in 1 Peter 4:12 and 13.
The scars of fire and of pain were never God's plan, but when it happens, God has the power to make the fire His instrument to remove from you everything that is toxic and harmful to your life. And the best part is that when you walk through the fire of the furnace, He walks with you. He comes to heal the scars and make all new and good again.
