The heat switch has been turned on in Texas, so more people are spending time inside. We are still getting outside taking care of chickens and a few Easter Egger and Production Red chicks we’ve added to the backyard, harvesting peaches and other garden vegetables. The chickens and chicks are doing well, which brings serenity to an otherwise emotionally heat filled past few months for us. Without going into details, many of our friends are going through some of the most difficult and stressful times in their lives. At least one has passed away through an aggressive disease at a relatively young age, leaving a loving husband that is left to redefine normal. We’ve had a front seat to the drama and the anxiety that has been all around us with our friends and some of our family for the last several months.

There is a song in Gershwin’s “Porgy and Bess” opera called Summertime. If you know the story, it portrays a lot of human suffering, and the struggles that some go through in life due to the actions of others and their choices. Porgy is the hero in the story, although not the type of hero that is currently portrayed by popular blockbuster movies such as Iron Man. Porgy is crippled, a person one might hand a few coins if they asked for it and you happen to be in the right mood. His true value is revealed throughout the rest of the story, emotionally touching audiences with every production. The catalyst that propels the drama in the story are people’s choices.

Heat is also a catalyst – it causes what is inert in a cooler environment to become active, and even transformational. Think about water. With the lack of heat it can be a solid, or even liquid, but apply enough heat and it turns into steam, rising and evaporating in the surrounding air. It will basically return to its non-heated nature when heat is removed, but it may have quite a journey when heat is present!

Our lives have had a lot of “heat” applied to them in the past few months. Sometimes we feel crippled in the midst of the situations, not being able to remove ourselves effectively from the effects and pain of people’s choices. Sometimes we have to absorb situations, wrapping our emotions in prayer and pursuing peace with our words and thoughts.

The apostle James wrote the following words for times like these:

Consider it all joy, my brothers and sisters, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. James 1:2-4.

So we carry on with pursuing life and a hope that goes beyond these transformations, knowing that the current troubles will have a purpose that reveals the love of our Savior and Lord in time. Transformation does not come easily due to the nature of our hearts and the selfishness we tend to deny, but we have confidence that transformation shall take place as the song says: “from glory to glory He is changing me.” We also know that we are returning to our true nature with every transformation, like the refining that is talked about for every believer in God's goodness and love.

Have you experienced that love recently?