Frost-bitten

Sharon had gotten frost-bite once, on a snowmobiling trip with a short-term boyfriend. She hated the cold, that crunch of snow and the sting of ice crystals.

“I don’t go skiing,” she informed her friends. “I’ll sit by the fire and read a book in the lodge.” Well, it wasn’t long when she didn’t bother going to the lodge but stayed home with her book and her cozy quilt.

She found new friends, too, ones who weren’t so crazy about the cold. They could sit with her by the fire, reading books and drinking Earl Gray tea.

Before long, they formed a club and met weekly to sit with steaming tea, a favorite book, and a hot fire. She met a nice young man who didn’t like the cold either and eventually they married and started a family.

But their last-born was a strong-willed one who refused to stay by the fire. Julie had discovered snowballs and toboggan trips were exhilarating.

“Mom, Dad, listen, there some exciting people who play in the snow!”

“It’s too cold,” Sharon told her. “I will not get frost bite ever again!”

Julie was a loving daughter so she considered that for awhile. But the call of the adventure lured her. “I feel something spiritual out there,” she told her mother. “I feel more alive, almost like God is with me.”

Sharon never joined her. But Julie found a good coat and took the risk.

In this you rejoice, even if now for a little while you have had to suffer various trials, so that the genuineness of your faith—being more precious than gold that, though perishable, is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.

1 Peter 1:6-7