Refinement

Restoration was not yet to come. 

1 Peter 1:6 & 7 tells us, "In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed." 

Funny, how one sees oneself.  The rose-colored glasses which we tend to view ourselves through are not the same spectacles that our Lord uses.  How often I forget that we will not ever be perfected this side of Heaven, but our goal until then is to become more like Christ in the process.  More often, I forget that the events of our lives are to bring the glory to God...to point to Him...always.

Well, there is more work to be done in me; and, the judicious God that He is, has some more working out to do in some others as well. 

This crisis has come, and we have rallied.  How dare I get complacent though!