When You Feel Like a Blob of Wax

I don’t have what people would call an “easy-going” personality. Terms like “easy-going”, “fun-loving”, and “mellow” have never applied to me. I feel deeply, mourn often and hate most forms of change. My senior year in high school was probably the most difficult time in my life. Not only was I about to leave home, change enough to throw the average-Joe for a loop, but there was upheaval in my personal life that I wasn’t sure I was going to survive. Amidst a bout with anorexia, in an effort to control what little of my life I felt I could, a friend challenged me to do something strange. He told me to take a regular candle, burn it every day, and observe the changes. I am not sure my mom knew or was comfortable with me burning a candle in my room every night, but I accepted the challenge blindly, willing to accept any advice that might give some clarity to the fog I was in.

Considering this was over 25 years ago, the details of how long I did this escapes me, but over time, the candle was reduced to a deformed blob. No longer could the flame be seen except as a faint light glowing through that ugly glob of wax. The point, as my friend explained it, was that as Christ prunes us, as we become one with him, we lose our neat appearance, the “control” over certain areas of our lives, becoming nothing except a vessel for his light to show through.

I do not know how that experience affected me at the time because I struggled emotionally for quite some time after that, but I have often thought of that illustration at times. While my pain wasn’t instantly lightened, that, like that candle,I thought of this experiment often and was reminded that God was and is using all experiences, some not pleasant, to transform me into a person he can use, even shine through. In a way, our walk with Christ is a constant dying. As Jesus explains,”The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also” (John 12: 23-26). Sometimes the pruning process is ugly, but for followers of Christ, we must be “melted” into a vessel he can work through. To expect that we can be his while keeping his “flame” from transforming us is not true to the gospel.

In Matthew 16, Jesus addresses this again saying,“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?” (Matthew 16:24-26). Americans today deal with very little suffering. We deal with very little hunger, poverty, or death compared to those in Jesus’ time or other parts of the world. For us, even mild suffering is difficult, but when we face hardship, significant or insignificant, we can rest assured, as Romans 8:28 promises that, as we trust in him, he will use that difficulty to transform us into a vessel he can use to “glow” for him. So, may we not only tolerate but “rejoice” as Paul did that (God’s) power is made perfect in weakness” and “boast all the more gladly of (our) weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon (us)” (2 Corinthians 12:9).