A "Grater" Experience

A

ll of us have pictures from our childhood that shape the way we view the world around us.   The kids we used to play with, the streets we used to walk, the games we used to play, and the secrets we used to share are indelibly etched in our memories. All of us, from time to time, venture back into the past to relive those wonderful experiences and to return to a time when life was much simpler and carefree.

Like all of you, I too have fond memories of my childhood.  Each time I pass the house where I grew up, memory after memory floods my mind and I am transported back to the days when nothing really mattered except being home for supper.  I remember long summer days when my friends and I played until late in the evening, milking every ray of sunlight from the sky until darkness fell.  I also remember the bitter cold of winter, shuffling through heavy snows, dragging my sled, on the way to join my friends who were already having loads of fun on one of the hills in a nearby neighborhood.

But one of my fondest memories does not involve sun, snow, sleds, or friends.  It has nothing to do with a particular game, a conversation, or a prank played on someone in the neighborhood.  There is one particular item that always takes me back to our home on Main Street, to the kitchen where I watched my mom cook so many meals, bake so many cakes, and turn common items into wonderful dishes as if by magic.

Our kitchen was a wonderful place and it was the exact center of our home.  I can still see my mother standing at the counter making one of a number of her specialties.  She made Cole slaw, macaroni and cheese, sweet potato pudding, and wonderful pies that sometimes called for the zest of lemons, oranges, or limes. 

All of these dishes required ingredients that had to be grated.  She would stand in the corner where our cabinets joined and vigorously rub a head of cabbage, a block of cheese, an onion, an orange, or anything else to be shredded against a grater.  She would work and work until enough cheese, or sweet potato had been shredded.  The job of that grater was to turn large portions of the ingredients into smaller, more useable pieces.  I can still hear the sound of cabbage rubbing against that grater as it was shredded into the right consistency for Cole slaw.

Isaiah the prophet wrote of this very process.  He knew that sometimes God has to work with us and place us against His grater in order to render us useful for His purposes.  Sometimes God places us under the heat, baking out all the impurities of life.  At other times, He grinds, cuts, beats, and mixes us until we are ready to be remade into something that will bring glory to our Heavenly Father.

Look at what the Lord has to say in Isaiah 48:10, “See, I have refined you, though not as silver; I have tested you in the furnace of affliction.”  At first glance, there is little that is appealing about a furnace or affliction.  Furnaces are hot places where heat is generated by burning and affliction always means difficulty and hardship.  But these are the very means and the very tools God uses to produce in us what we cannot produce in ourselves.  In the furnace, everything that is unnecessary and everything that is impure is burned away.  Only through intense heat can we be purged and prepared for God’s purposes.

Likewise, afflictions and difficulties come because they teach us to rely solely and completely on our God.  When we are faced with trials, when the circumstances of life are overwhelming, when fear, doubt, confusion, and problems crash down upon us, what are we to do?  Where are we to go?  It is at times like this that God wants us to run to Him.  He bids us jump into His arms and cling more tightly to Him.  He is our comfort and shelter in times such as these.  He tests us in the furnace of affliction because He knows what the end result will be.  God is always after the end result, never the present set of circumstances.  If you are in the furnace today, rest assured God is working to change your life into something that is more beautiful than you could ever imagine.

Mom’s grater is now sitting in my cabinet.  I asked if I could have it and she agreed. She has one of those new-fangled ones with a fancy handle and metal tray to hold all the shredded material inside.  It is a nice grater but I prefer the old one, the one she used to use, the one that taught me so many lessons. 

One last thing I should mention about the grating process.  Whatever is being grated is constantly in the hand of the person doing the shredding.  When enough of the ingredient has been shredded, the process will stop but not one second before.  Is God shredding you today?  Are you ready to have a grater experience?  I truly hope so!