G O L D E N

This past weekend, I had my golden birthday. Colloquial for when you turn the age you’re turning on the date with the same number - 24 on the 24th - we decided to celebrate with a golden-themed weekend upstate. We designed a menu of golden foods, planned activities, and settled on a guest list of some of the sweetest people in my life. We danced through our days with sweet gold cocktails in our hands, we exchanged stories over buttery, gold chicken. I beamed looking around one night as my sweet friends laughed around our little wooden table and stuffed powdery, gold lemon bars into their mouths, and I said so many silent prayers of thanks for these people as we hiked to a waterfall just as golden hour greeted us on the day of my birthday. I can’t believe I get to do life with such people, be served by the deep well of creativity and thoughtfulness of my person, and receive the generosity of staying in the beautiful home of my dear friend. But as I planned and prepared, as I sat up late at night watching the shadows dance on the hills around the home, I began to think about the meaning that gold has in my life, wanting the weekend to encompass more than just glitter and gold-painted flowers. 

A few years back, God had spoken a word over me about being a “miner”. Miners go into dark places and extract things to be used and refined. In a similar way, God had told me that I was to do the same - see the gold in people, call it out, and help it be used. I’ve always loved sparkly things, the way they catch the light, the kind of beauty that rests in something that can bounce the sun off its surface, but to be honest, I don’t think much about what things are like, or what the process is before they are sparkly. 

The reality is, the things in us in those dark places, can sometimes take a whole lot of time and effort to extract, and more than that, it can be a terrifying or painful process. Mining is an incredibly dangerous job in the real world, and on a personal level, I have found that sometimes when you ask to pull out something, people can quickly shut the entrance in reaction to feeling seen or exposed. I’ve learned this the hard way a few times. I can even have the very same reaction to my own extraction. 

In this past year of life, some major things have been called out - rough and raw material that needed major cleaning and refining, has somehow been dusted off and sharpened to become usable and beautiful. Things I did not want to see in broad daylight were brought out to be reckoned with and entrusted in the hands of my Creator. And, let me tell you, there is no better thing. What we hold onto so tightly can only go as far or be as used as our own two hands will let us, and things kept hidden away can barely be used at all. But when God calls forth gold in us, we have the opportunity to see just how He can use what He has so intentionally placed in us. 

This past year, God has called tenderness out of the caverns of my life. Tenderness has long been something that I have kept hidden away, protected fiercely with strength and boldness and leadership. I have long thought that tenderness was a weakness in me, needing to be hidden forever so that no one could take advantage of me or see me vulnerably. 

But as tenderness has come forth, I’ve realized that is perhaps one of my most useful strengths. In tenderness I have found empathy, commonality, and intimacy that I’ve never had. Tenderness has exposed me, made me vulnerable to getting hurt, and has been something that at times I want to opt out of in favor of a steely strength. But slowly, I am learning to lay down my arms, realizing that tenderness can co-exist with resilience, and the combination of the two is incredibly powerful. 

Now, I find myself in a season of extraction and refining yet again, even more painful than the last. There are some deeply hidden things, insecurities, beliefs, patterns, that can no longer stay in the cave. Called forth and brought to life, I am realizing they are much better in God’s seasoned hands. It’s a painful process, but the gold in the end will be well worth it. To sparkle I guess sometimes we have to suffer first.