A nice glass of wine
It is during the tough times, that we grow.
From the challenges, we learn compassion.Right?
While we were in prayer tonight at a Youth Gathering that I helped out with, I saw a vision.
There were several wine glasses on a belt in a factory. They were being “made”. There was not anything fancy about them, rather they were your typical clear, goblet styled drinking glasses that you would normally drink water or iced tea from at a reception or banquet.I could see the wine fade in and out (so that I would know that these particular glasses werets were made for the purpose of holding wine). All in lines, the glasses were traveling down the conveyor belt and heading toward a tunnel. I heard the word “tempered”… and had a “knowing” that I should study the process of tempering glass.This research proved to be so rich… and the message therein was quite powerful.
We are alot like those wine glasses... meant to hold something that is costly and of great value... and our lives are much like that of the process that glass goes through to be tempered.
In short, part of the tempering process is to apply great heat to ordinary glass... which gives it a strength far greater than a plain, untreated piece of glass. Because it has gone throughthe fire, it can now withstand more adverse conditions, like heat and pressure.
Aren't we the same?
Though it doesn't feel good to go through the "heat" of life.... once we have made it through, we are able to deal with more difficult times without breaking.
Another characteristic of tempered glass is that when it does shatter, it breaks into smaller, less jagged fragments... instead of the long, sharp slithers that it would become had it not been tempered.
And such is our life. When we have not been tempered... or gone through heat and pressure, we are more prone to hurt one another. In our brokenness, we are sharp and cutting... whether we want to be or not.
Maybe you feel the heat and pressure of life right now. Be encouraged... your adversity has not come to break you... but to make you stronger! Allow the tempering to take place.
You too, shall be a stronger, less hurtful, more beautiful vessel because of it.
Soli Deo Gloria,
Tracye
