We are busy at present

Crossing Boundaries

There are places and times that no one should be disturbed.

There is information that is private.

 There are people who will disturb you in them every time. Often they have an intimate relationship with us and they may not have our best interests at heart.

Who are your people and what are the places?

The Crucible

A crucible is a porcelain or bone china cup that has been bisque fired but not glazed.  It is used in an assay, which is an effort to find out just how much gold is in the rock that people are mining.  A measured amount of raw ore is ground and mixed with a number of chemicals and the slurry is put into the crucible cup.  Then you apply high heat for a long time.  As the cup and the contents get hot, the impurities are absorbed into the porcelain and all that is left behind is the gold.

In our lives there are times where we end up in the crucible finding out how much gold is in the mix.   Many times the crucible time is a side effect of someone else’s problem.  Cancer is a crucible disease not only for the patient but for the entire family.  There are other diseases and other situations that can create a crucible, job loss and addiction being two of them.  The process of getting well or not and what happens after that can put a lot of people through the crucible process.

Here are some things to know:

No one crawls into the crucible willingly.

Mostly it is visited upon you.  These things tend not to be your fault.

You didn’t ask for it. 

No one has the same experience.

No one does it well.

No one does it “right”

This experience tests you down to the individual moral fibers.  It is a slog.

Your response is yours.

The first crucible time is the worst.

And each time you go through will be different.

When you come out, you will be different.

This is somewhat related to the card of divine tests