Fiery Ordeals

One side of mouth:
"It has been a long time of a lot of work. I will be glad when it is over."
Other side of mouth:
"I'm sad it is ending."

These two statements came barely 24 hours apart, from the same 13 year old daughter over the same Science Olympiad work that ends this weekend with the State competition. Despair and delight. They are sometimes kissing cousins.


"I thought you were glad it is ending. I thought you were weary of all the work," I said.
"Well I am, but I will miss it too."
"We will make a point of seeing all your friends over the summer. We can take them kayaking."
She nodded.

But it isn't the same, even something as wonderful as kayaking. It is not the same as struggling together through what seem like insurmountable problems in areas  in which one has no knowledge or experience. It isn't the same, even something so beautiful and relaxing as kayaking through a shady inlet, as watching helicopter after helicopter smash to smithereens and stretching one's brain to understand how the design should be altered in an area that a few months ago, that brain would not have dared to travel. It isn't the same as being a team member, rebuilding a flinging machine week after week with hopes that the projectile will be flung forwards, not backwards....and then finally achieving success only to have the flinging arm break.

It isn't the same, peacefully lounging in the sun with the waves lapping against the hull, as crying one's eyes out because after 5 hours of painstaking work, the fragile structure breaks, and one must begin all over again. It isn't the same, exploring sun dappled coves with fragrant red flowers never seen before lining the shore while the kayak dips and bobs on gentle swells backwashed from the encounter with land, as lifting one's hand to release something you have crafted together and watching it soar to the peak of a glass ceiling where clouds and hawks circle just beyond. It isn't the same as firing a trebuchet, a word that was unknown to you just 9 months ago, a trebuchet you designed and built together and managed to erect without losing a single important body part, and then watching that trebuchet finally fling the projectile the full length of the driveway.

Resting from work is good....but it isn't the same as working beyond what you ever dreamed you could do, bearing struggles you felt were going to kill you, and coming out on the other side victorious.

Our Bible study was from 1 Peter 4. We spent the whole time discussing why the term "fiery ordeal" was used to describe the trials we should expect in our life walking with God. Why not just a less frightening term like "difficulties" or "struggles"? Who wants to know ahead of time that it will be a "fiery ordeal?" Given the choice, which of us would say wholeheartedly, "Send me into the furnace and burn me alive that I might emerge (if I emerge) stronger and purer?" I honestly believe I love God, however imperfectly, but personally, I think I could do without that fiery ordeal.

But to a small degree, that is what my Science Olympiad teams endured. It wasn't their health that was enduring anguish, but their time, their energy, their ability to persevere in a task that seemed impossible to accomplish, their working together withholding blame and acrimony when things went badly, and being generous in their praise and encouragement to the other when things went well. They may not have been vocally proclaiming Christ and suffering for their faith, but they were proclaiming him in character, as they struggled together through some very frustrating and desperate moments together. It would have been easy to give up, to scream, to be ugly and unkind....but they never were. All this for a 13 year old is a fiery ordeal of sorts. And now they are out of the furnace, and how funny that they will miss the heat.

1 Peter 4: 11-13
 ¹² Dear friends, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. ¹³ But rejoice inasmuch as you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed.