While everyone is busy making last minute Christmas preparations, many are also missing and mourning their loved ones. Some have passed away since last year and others may have died years ago, but the holidays have a way of bringing back their joyful memories, as well as some pain of their absence.
This Christmas Day will mark five years since our mom went to be with Jesus. Her fiery accident on Christmas Eve resulted in third degree burns over fifty percent of her body and ushered her into eternity the next day. But not without first giving her the opportunity to bear witness to her Savior whose birth we celebrate next Wednesday.
Many readers will remember how she sang hymns with her rescuers who transported her to RMH and how she encouraged her doctors and nurses there to put their trust in Jesus. As we read her Scriptures, she repeated them from memory through her oxygen mask drawing great strength and comfort from God’s Holy Word in a time of great distress.
As she lay in the emergency room I will never forget how she told one doctor, “God’s always with me and to think that Jesus came to earth at this time of year to save us from our sins.” She led us in singing Amazing Grace, What a Friend We Have in Jesus, the Doxology, and Meet Me There. Right up to the very end of her earthly life she was praising and honoring her Savior and encouraging everyone else to do the same.
I was reminded of her experience recently while reading in the Old Testament. In Zechariah 13:9 God says, “I will refine them like silver and test them like gold. They will call on my name and I will answer them; I will say, ‘They are my people,’ and they will say, ‘The Lord is our God.'”
Down through history, fire has been used to purify precious substances. Metallurgists employ this process to separate pure metals from the dross or less valuable components that often occur with them. Since the cheaper elements melt away at lower temperatures, only the finest gold and silver remain after passing through the fire.
Zechariah’s prophecy, I believe, speaks of another time, but our mother and others have been through the purifying fire of testing already. Although mom’s was a time of short intense trial, the faith she exhibited and the testimonies she shared revealed that any final dross had been removed and her pure glistening golden love for Jesus was all that remained.
We all go through difficult times. For some it is brief and concentrated as it was with mother. For others it may be long and protracted sometimes even lasting many years. I am always encouraged by precious saints in nursing homes who continue to shine Jesus’ light even though life is no longer very pleasant for them.
Some endure furnaces of financial struggles while others battle broken relationships. Sooner or later all of us go through a time of fiery testing of some type or the other. These fires do not create our golden faith, they only reveal and purify it. It’s vitally important that we develop and maintain a strong relationship with God through His Son Jesus so that when (not if) those times come, our true character will be found worthy.
In 1 Peter 1:6-7, the apostle reminds us, “In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith — of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire — may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.” That indeed happened with our mother and I pray that it happens for each of us whenever our tests come.
As we prepare to celebrate Jesus’ birthday, be sure to initiate your own relationship with Him by accepting Him as the perfect sacrifice for your sin. Invite Him into your heart to begin the work of removing the dross of sin and creating the gold and silver of enduring faith.
Merry Christmas, George