The Legend of the FireFlower

"…On a huge hearth a great fire was burning, and the fire was a huge heap of roses, and yet it was fire." 

Looks can be deceiving. 

On my right hand, I wear a steal band of twisted rose buds. This provides endless confusion for my students; first because they can't tell left from right, and second because I'm not married. 
"Then why do you wear a ring?" It's a valid question. 
"To remind me of the FireFlowers."

Elementary students are the best. Their minds are curious and imaginations still intact. Questions have not yet become dangerous and they ask out of a desire for truth. These questions are an invitation into their minds and hearts; a teachable moment... a gardening moment. And I'm here to garden.

"The smell of the roses filled the air, and the heat of the flames of them glowed upon his face. He turned an inquiring look upon the lady…

‘Go and thrust both your hands into that fire,’ she said quickly, almost hurriedly."

Never, ever was I going to be a teacher; nope, I was going to be a missionary somewhere that required a hijab of some kind, where my red hair and green eyes stuck out and elicited wonder and questions. Somewhere orphans needed to be loved like the valuable image-bearers they were.

And then came the twists and turns of the narrow path my King had placed me on.

"He dared not stop to think... He rushed to the fire, and thrust both of his hands right into the middle of the heap of flaming roses... And it did hurt! But he did not draw them back. He held the pain as if it were a thing that would kill him if he let it go – as indeed it would have done…"

Each turn in the road has brought fresh tears; pain more intense and darkness bleaker than before. And yet, each time... my King is waiting to wrap his arms around the pain. Waiting for me to remember that He never left, even in my blind agony.

"But when it had risen to the pitch that he thought he could bear it no longer, it began to fall again... At last it ceased altogether, and Curdie thought his hands must be burned to cinders if not ashes, for he did not feel them at all. The princess told him to take them out and look at them… they were white and smooth like the princess’s…

‘Would you like to know why I made you put your hands in the fire?…'"

The Refiner's Fire. It's not a single trip through the fire, but a present-active-indicative-continuing. Each trip through the FireFlowers is a little more intense, reaching a new part of my soul. Each time, another part of my being is Made New. Made to reflect Him.

Being made into a fully equipped gardener. (Matt 13:1-9, 28:18)

Maybe one day I'll need a hijab to garden, but I've come to realize my King has planted me and prepared me exactly for this moment...  the "great campaign of sabotage," right here and right now.

Our culture of trauma runs deep. Whether literally or figuratively, many of my students have been orphaned - they are longing to be loved as the image-bearers they are. And each trip through the FireFlowers has given my hands new vision to see them and love them; to tantalize their curiosity with actions that don't make sense in this world. To incite their questions.

It's such a tiny thing... my twisted vine of rosebuds doesn't make sense and my answer was even more cryptic. "What is a FireFlower and why do you need to remember it?" And with that, in my local 'closed' environment, I had just been handed the invitation to share who is keeping me together. An invitation to garden... to tell my broken babes that experiencing the FireFlowers is going to happen, and that's ok... Because I know someone stronger than the hurt, stronger than the thorns, and even stronger than the flames. And I don't ever want to forget that.

Do you embrace the FireFlowers when they come? Do you hold tight to the pain of renewal, knowing who is holding you? Or do you politely walk away from the hearth?
Another day, I'll be ready to feel that... When things slow down... it's too much... not today...
If He is asking, I promise it's not too much.

Are you creating a subversive culture of love and questioning around you? Are there ways you could be engaging in 'sabotage' that you have been avoiding? What's more important... your job or that moment of gardening?

I still pass up gardening moments and cry over them in secret... but know this, dear hearts: He is using even those moments. The FireFlowers will keep coming, and He will still be there loving you (Jer 31:3)... desiring you... delighting in you (Ps 18:19)... Yes, even in the failure and the fire, He is our King, and He will save us. (Is 32:22)

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If you'd like to read more of the FireFlower story, here is a tantalizing excerpt from "The Princess and Curdie" by George MacDonald. Many of his books are Open Domain, and have free Kindle editions available (which I've linked below).

*Remember to read as the writing was intended: young adult allegorical fantasy fiction - not a theological treatise. If you can't parse within a genre, than MacDonald's work isn't for you.

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"'Have you ever heard what some philosophers say – that men were all animals once?… all men, if they do not take care, go down the hill to the animals’ country; many men are actually, all their lives, going to be beasts.

‘I am not surprised, ma’am, when I think of some of our miners.’

‘Ah! But you must beware, Curdie, how you say of this man or that man that he is traveling beastward. There are not so many as you might think.'

‘But ma’am,’ said Curdie, ‘where is the good of knowing that there is such a difference, if you can never know where it is?’

‘Now Curdie, you must mind exactly what words I use… I did not say you can never know. When there is a necessity for you knowing… there is always a way of knowing enough to keep you from any great blunder. And as you will have important business to do …with people of whom you yet know nothing, it will be necessary that you should have some better means than usual of learning the nature of them. Now listen.

‘Since it is always what they do, whether in their minds or their bodies, that makes men go down to be less than men, the change always comes first in their hands – in the inside hands, to which the outside ones are but as... gloves. They do not know it of course; for a beast does not know that he is a beast…

‘Now here is what the rose-fire has done for you: it has made your hands so knowing and wise, that you will henceforth be able to know at once the hand of a man who is growing into a beast; nay, more – you will at once feel the foot of the beast he is growing. According then, to your knowledge of that beast will be your knowledge of the man you have to do with.’

‘I suppose you want me, ma’am, to warn every one whose hand tells me that he is growing a beast – because, as you say, he does not know it himself.’

The princess smiled.

‘Much good that would do, Curdie! I don’t say there are no cases in which it would be of use, but they are very rare and peculiar cases, and if such come you will know them. To such a person there is in general no insult like the truth. He cannot endure it, not because he is growing a beast, but because he is ceasing to be a man...’

‘And is there no hope for him? Can nothing be done? It’s so awful to think of going down, down… like that!

‘Even when it’s with his own will?’

“That’s what seems to me to make it worst of all,’ said Curdie.

‘You are right,’ answered the princess, nodding her head; ‘but there is this… – that they do not know what or how horrid their coming fate is. Many a lady… if she had a mirror that could show her the animal she is growing to… would receive a shock that might possibly wake her up.’

‘Why then, ma’am, shouldn’t she have it?’

The princess held her peace.

‘Come here, Lina,’ she said after a long pause.

From somewhere behind Curdie, crept forward the same hideous animal which had [met him] at the door. She ran to the princess, and lay down flat at her feet…

‘Give Curdie a paw, Lina,’ said the princess.

The creature rose, and… held up a great doglike paw to Curdie. He took it gently. But what a shudder, as of terrified delight, ran through him, when, instead of the paw of a dog… he clasped in his great mining fist the soft, neat little hand of a child! He took it in both of his, and held it as if he could not let it go… His eyes sought the princess.

‘Ma’am, here is a child’s hand!’ Said Curdie.

‘Your gift does more for you than it promised. It is yet better to perceive a hidden good than a hidden evil.’

‘But,’ began Curdie.

‘I am not going to answer any more questions this evening,’ interrupted the princess. ‘You have not half got to the bottom of the answers I have already given you. That paw in your hand now might almost teach you the whole science of natural history – the heavenly sort, I mean.’

The Princess and Curdie - Free Kindle edition, the second book in the series.

The Princess and the Goblin - Free Kindle edition, one of my absolute favorites.