refiner's fire

i am feeling sick today :( the thought crossed my mind, more than once, to pull a sickie. but as my head hit the pillow that Little Voice that resides in the sensible part of me piped up - you're only there for five more days. get what you can out of it!

and so with a somewhat herculean effort, i dragged myself out of bed and trudged to work. the peak hour traffic hit once again.. i'm not sure if it was my imagination but this morning it seemed worse. barely any elbow space, and i briefly contemplated turning back and going home. it was almost like my bed was callllliiiinggg to me :P



i got moved to a different room again today. i like this room best, i'm sharing it with another trainee from london. his name is ben and he's about the youngest person in the office apart from me :D (he's 24) and we got talking (he's travelled alot and travel talk alwaysss inspires me) and now i have a friend! yay! the next few days are looking up. it's true; having a friend at work really changes your mindset towards coming in every day. knowing you have someone to joke with, whinge to, or even chat with (even if it's on a superficial level) is still nice. i guess he feels as lonely and displaced as i do - or even more - london and singapore are very different, after all. so hooray for that!



he has an accent too :P



oh.. he told me about this place in cambodia, ruins of some sort that were once upon a time made to depict what the people thought heaven on earth would look like. apparently you wake up at 5am in the morning to watch the sun rise over the main temple and get "really fantastic shots!" (with the accent). as he was describing it - he said trees shoot out from the buildings; the entire place has been half claimed by nature and yet retains that lingering majesty of a place that once stood tall.



cambodia, anyone? haha



i was just thinking the other day.. about refiner's fire. there are several references in the bible to this concept - us being the vines and God the pruner, us the silver and Him the smith, us the clay and Him the potter. all of it to depict the relationship between our Maker and His children. the silver analogy reminded me of a story i had read. the process of refining silver is to hold it in fire until the impurities are gone.. and during this time the smith will always have his eye on the silver and will never leave it - a minute too long in the flames and the silver is ruined. but the end product is something beautiful to look at and reflective of the image of its maker.



being in the flames hurt but we are never alone, and the final image is one that is beautiful; all impurities burned away.



i found this story comforting because when i hit testing times, i often feel alone.. and i wonder why things happen the way they do.. so now i shall keep this story as a reminder to learn from my mistakes or things that happen that are out of my control.

refiner's fire..