This subject was part of one of the chapters we were to read for Bible study this past weeek.  (We are talking about petrified wood, not being so scared you are petrified!)

The author explained how regular trees from the woods or forest are turned into petrified wood.  She said they are growing along nicely when some type of natural disaster hits them and removes them from the forest and dumps them into the water of a nearby river.  More natural disasters make certain chemical reactions between things in the water and the wood itself.  There in the water, while no one is looking, petrified wood is formed.  The petrifying wood becomes beautiful, sparkling, and very valuable.

The comparison was made than between the formation of this petrified wood and the spiritual petrification of some believers.  She said that sometimes God takes people out of where they were, puts them aside, and begins the process of petrifying them.  The pain and suffering that they experience is like the chemical reaction that helps form the petrified wood.  These believers become petrified, sparking, gemstomes, beautiful, and very valuable.

Having adapted well to the Romanian mindset of thinking 2 opposing thoughts and the same time, I both liked and disliked this analogy.  I did not like idea of being set aside.  That is not what I desired or had planned for my life.  I did not like the natural disaster or pain part of the analogy either.  I did like the part about being made beautiful and valuable.  I did like the part of seeing how “natural disasters” or pain can be used to produce gemstone qualities in us.  While the author may have stretched things to make her analogy, I could certainly identify with what she was saying.

So what now?  Do I sit back and complain about the “natural disasters”, the man-made disasters, the set-backs in my life?  Or do I let the Lord’s purifying power turn my ordinary wooden self into beautiful, valuable, precious in His sight treasures?