Forged

I am feeling a hardness starting to settle at the outer regions of my soul.  It is a sense I have known before:  the sense of being forged by circumstances.

It is a thing that comes when a realization occurs, the realization that circumstances simply cannot continue as they are and that to survive them, you will need to become stronger, purposeful:  forged.

Forging is heating and hammering, drawing and folding, shaping and forming.  Forging takes raw metal and makes it into something of use or repairs that which was of no use into something useful.

I can feel the hammers of circumstances beating me against the anvil of reality, stripping away that which of no use, forcing me to confront reality as it actually stands, bending my resisting life into something else.

It is hard, this forging.  It strips away pretenses.  It forces me to deal with things as they are, not as I would like them to be.  It asks me hard questions about values, about purpose, about what really matters and where I should be.

But the forge is a promise as well.  Something is only forged when it is intended to be used.

May the heat of the fire and the strength of the hammering make me more of, not less of, what I need to be.