Too Hot to Handle

     It's starting to heat up in Arizona. We had a record high the other day of 111 degrees for a day in May. When I lived in Oregon, I rarely thought about my steering wheel being too hot to handle, but here the joke is you know you live in Arizona when you see someone driving around with oven mitts on and you respond, "Why didn't I think of that?"
     Today I broke into the dried Wasabi Peas, dried green peas coated with spicy horseradish-type Wasabi seasoning. I popped one in my mouth and thought, "Yummy!" So then I took a handful and started chewing. The heat of the spice started to burn my sinuses and make my eyes water. Yikes! A little bit goes a long way!
     These events made me think about my life and my response when things begin to heat up. Do I just grab on for dear life and get burned trying to ride out the problem? Do I bite off more than I can chew and then cry about it? Yes, sometimes I do both actually. But in those prepared moments, when I've spent time in the Word of God and prayed, I remember what I should do. Put on the full armor of God and be still and let God put out the fires in my life.

Candles lit in memory of Jesus' ultimate sacrifice, in the chapel on the grounds of the Garden of Gethsemane, Israel.

^{I Peter 1:6} In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. ⁷ 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.