The Fire of life Can Reveal the Heart

 Sometimes when we encounter the fire of life we can rediscover our hearts,

Sometimes when we get burnt, the burn can give more than it can take,

Sometimes when we experience hardship we can encounter new compassion within us,

Sometimes when we experience pain we find a deeper way to view and appreciate life,

Sometimes the pain shows us beauty we never saw or always took for granted   

Sometimes it takes a life's journey of change to reveal who we really are,

Sometimes who we think we are needs to be melted away in order to reveal our true ability to love,

Sometimes we need to be melted down only to discover a new beautiful shape that we can become,

Sometimes the heat of life can create the most beautiful design within us,

Sometimes our hearts are so covered, so burdened, so troubled that..... 

We can't remember what it means to  love,

We forget how to cry,

We  forget how to feel,

We can even forget what it means to be alive, 
We forget to dance, flirt and fight with the beauty and challenges of life.

In those times look at the burning candle,

A little light can fight with so much darkness,

A little bit of life, a touch of hope, can topple the sturdiest tower of hopelessness,

A candle can burn, it can be melted down, but while doing so, it slowly reveals its beating heart, laying under layers of seemingly unchangeable, unmalleable hard wax,

We all have a heart that yearns to live, to breath, to jump to the surface,

A heart that can pick us up, even after we fall time and again,
A heart that is so strong,

So strong it just needs a glimmer of hope, a thread to hang on to, and it is ready to march forward, head held high, to find the beauty of life, once again.

P.s.

I took the picture of this candle, reveling its heart, in my Jerusalem apartment. (Winter 2011)