Hopefully Refined

About 2 weeks ago as I was dozing of in my fabulously comfy bed, I was mentally planning out the next day and rerunning parts of the day past and suddenly the thought hit me " Susanna, you totally forgot to get refined!"

Oh my, oh no.

You see almost 2 years ago when my sweet Piper was diagnosed with infantile leukemia and I was totally and completely overwhelmed with what all that was going to mean for my newly made family of four, I remember being told often that God was in control. (true) And I remember being encouraged many times over the months that God was "refining" me. That He was taking this horrible, no good, very bad news and using it to refine me as a Christian, as a wife, as a mother and as a woman. That He was going to walk me through the pain of this fire in my life in order to become cleaner, more pure. Hmmm.

I still say Hmmm. I looked up the word "refined" on dictionary.com because I am currently lazy and it says this:

Refined: adjective
1.
having or showing well-bred feeling, taste, etc.: refined people.
2.
freed or free from coarseness, vulgarity, etc.: refined taste.
3.
freed from impurities: refined sugar.


Well folks, that doesn't sound much like me. I mean really, my daughter knows how to correctly use a 4 letter word and I rarely wear matching clothing. The part I most find shame in is the "freed from impurities", because I am a work in progress. For reals.

I planned on becoming refined over the course of Pipers 2 years of treatment. I envisioned myself more patient, more kind, more giving, less snarky, less lazy and less questioning. People would look at me and know that I was wise. I would become the mom I dreamed of being and my husband would sing my praises. Well, Piper completes her treatment in September of this year. So, that's basically less than 2 months of refining I have to cram in. Possible?

Who knows. I do know that while I hardly feel refined, I do know that leukemia is not the only trial I will go through and that someday when I stand at those fancy pearly gates and God is going to look at me (probably similarly to the way I sometimes look at Linley and Piper when I just don't get why they don't get what I am trying to get them to do) and still open His arms up and let me in and then, and only then will I be fully refined.

So long story short(er), I am not through being refined. Not one bit...but I am still faithfully married, I still pray over two daughters before bed, I still rely on my soul friends, and I still desire thoroughly that God will continue this work He began in me. Not only the work I was when I first loved Him, but even more so when He first showed me what it is to walk through fires and come out not scorched, maybe a little scarred but probably a whole lot of Hopeful.