Through The Fire

Several years ago my dear sister in law was badly burned in an accidental kitchen fire.  She suffered second and third degree burns over a large portion of her body.  I still remember that day.  I was planting flowers in our garden all grimy and covered in earth and Brian came running from the house with the phone in his hand- “Heather, what do you put on a burn?”  After explaining the accident and the extent of her injury I replied quickly – “You put a hospital on it.  Tell her to go now, we’ll meet them there.”

The family gathered in the waiting room.  There was a mix of sullen and quiet, and hysterical crying as we waited for the doctor’s prognosis.  After being stabilized and assessed she was transferred to the burn unit, where she spent quite an extended period of time healing from her wounds. 

We, her family and friends, divided up practical ways to support her family.  Care for her small children, meals, preparing her home for her return.  She spent her hours and days in much agony reeling from her pain both physical and emotional, while her care providers helped her focus on recovery.

Recovery from a burn isn’t easy.  Much care is taken to prevent infection from setting in. From what I understand it’s a complicated and regimented process where they bathe the wounds, peel away the dead skin, and treat the raw naked wound with antibiotics and salve.  There is wrapping and unwrapping, and scraping and scrubbing.  I think that at times, the methods that were used to prevent infection were maybe even more painful then the fire itself.

I think that my sweet sister in law spent hours wondering why she endured such a tragic accident.  I think she spent hours vacillating between wanting to heal and go home, and wanting to just give up and be done with the healing process.   It takes work to really heal.  It takes determination, and a conclusive commitment to enduring even more excruciating pain to ensure that the wounds heal completely, without a trace of impurity that can settle in, infect and contaminate and threaten the entire body. Some of us are fighting to heal.  Some of us are fighting to avoid the pain, deciding instead to live with wounds that left untreated could ultimately destroy us. 

Healing seems to come in waves.  It starts with hope, an outlook, a prognosis that pronounces that such pain has not been mortally wounding.  It promises hope for recovery and restoration.  We decide to ride the wave.  Sometimes I think as the wave crescendos into its masterpiece we struggle with the process.  Getting thrashed around, barely able to breath, the threat of additional pain, and then it calms.  Just for a moment, before the next wave appears.  I think that sometimes I want to live in between the waves. It’s calmer in between… safer, there.  It’s less painful there. The problem with refusing to ride the next wave is that it means we refuse to keep healing, keep progressing, to let the restorative nature of the healing process actually heal us.  And we struggle, and fight, we think we might drown, might not survive the process.  So we try to save ourselves.  Just keep swimming, just keep swimming, swimming, swimming… And we grow tired so tired.  And the current goes stronger.  And in our weakness… It’s there we have a choice.  A choice to surrender, or a choice to keep fighting. 

Sometimes I think that we fight to keep our head above the water, and treading our little legs we’re able to do just that, for a while any way.  We tell ourselves to persevere, keep on fighting, press on… but how long can you keep on barely surviving?

Certainly, there’s a time for pressing on… but I think its possible that even in our good intentions to keep up the good fight, we might miss the point entirely… which is to just let go.  Not surrendering unto death, but surrendering so that we might truly live. Because, we can’t really save ourselves.  If we could, our Father would have never sent His Son. After all, His strength is made perfect in our weakness.  2 Corithians 12:9

I think that maybe, when we stop fighting with the great physician, who seeks to remove all of our impurities, when we just surrender… to the waves healing, and to the pain, then we can really, really start to heal.  Skin that grows is fragile.  Its soft, it’s unadulterated, it’s pure. It’s new, like just like a newborn baby.

We learn as Christians to pray for this.  We have songs about the refiners fire.  We have language- “let it burn, bring your fire!”  We have fire tunnels.  Well, some of us do.  But fire, fire is unbearably hot.  It is excruciating.  Sometimes I think that when we sing our pretty songs, and pray well-intentioned prayers, we forget what we are asking for is utterly painful.

I believe He desires that we might truly live, that we would be rid of our impurities, the things in us that allowed to remain would destroy us… Selfish ambition, independence, control, addictions, coping mechanisms, I could go on and on and on.  If these things are allowed to remain they will contaminate us, mortally wound us, and those that we care about. He cleanses us with Fire, and with Water – “Everything that can stand the fire, you shall pass through the fire, and it shall be clean.  Nevertheless, it shall also be purified with the water for impurity.” Numbers 31:23

“He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi, and refine them like gold and silver, and they will bring offerings in righteousness to the Lord”  Malachi 3:3

I am starting to realize that God is so less concerned with my comfort than he is with my purification, and my heart.  He wants to rid my heart of it’s hard, bitter, impurities.  Impurities left behind from thirty (plus) years of wounds.  Wounds I never really fully surrendered, and never really healed from. 

He’s honest about the fact that we, believers will suffer trials.  “These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold, though your faith is far more precious than mere gold. So when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed”  1 Peter 1:7

“When trouble comes your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy.  For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow.  So let it grow! For when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect, and complete”  James 1:2-4

I think that I am realizing that these familiar mountains are very revealing.  And what they are revealing is my dis-in genuine faith. 

Sometimes Hannah will free fall from high spaces.  My bed, the top of the stairs.  Just fall, without hesitation, because she knows that I will catch her.  Genuine faith knows that the Father, will catch and carry us.  Through fires, and crashing waves.  I think that we stop struggling to save our selves, to fix ourselves, than we can truly be saved… and healed, and purified.  We can’t live between the waves any more than a burn victim can live in the middle of the burn treatments.  The calm, and comfortable place in between is a place of death, not of life.

I’m ready to live….  To burn, and to heal.  I’m ready to surrender, to stop struggling and be carried through the waves.  I’m ready to quit fighting, and rest under the shadow of the wing of the one who carries me.

It’s been over seven years.  You can barely see the scars from her skin grafts.  You might be tempted to think they are evidence of her wounds.  You’d be wrong.  They are evidence of her healing…