Through the Refiner’S Fire: Stories of a Heart Growing up in the South

By Janie Coleman

Through the Refiners Fire is a collection of stories that reflect the authors life growing up in the South in a rural community. It was a wonderful and simple time of life that brought joy and amazement to her as a young child.

This book also reflects her journey through various significant relationships she has had over the years. It is her desire that as you read this book, you will find encouragement and even some joy because of her words. Also, the stories can help you reflect on some of your own positive stories you have had in your journey.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Inspiring Voices
• Release date: Dec 17, 2015
• ISBN: 9781462411627

Janie Coleman

Many times, I have looked back upon my life and times, searching for something to take the pain away, without any success. In my first book, I examined my life, and found myself lacking. But, by looking into my present, I find much progress since I opened my heart and mind to Christ. Once again, I brave the past as one that perhaps you may find hope in my new life with Christ Jesus. I say no one, should ever follow my path but to find peace in the knowing that He alone is salvation and hope for your present and future. He turns no one away, and He always, always, keeps his promises.

Book preview

Auntie's Dooryard

O ne of my favorite places to go as a child was to Auntie's house. Her real name was Beulah Pauline Platt. She was my daddy's aunt, which made her my great aunt. Anyway, we always called her Auntie. She lived at 3715 38 th Street in Tampa, Florida. For the benefit of those who may remember Tampa, in the 50's, her house was smack in the middle between Lake Avenue and Buffalo Avenue. In those days, it was almost a rural area, at least it seemed that way to a six-year old girl. Actually it was on the eastern edge of Tampa, but she had chickens, an old dog named Butch and there were always a few cats around the place. To me it was a farm, and a place of endless fascination where it was all right to eat with your fingers, crawl under the stoop and go to bed with dirty feet.

One of my favorite pastimes was to play with the peeps. Peeps was my name for baby chicks (for obvious reasons). Auntie's dooryard was where the hens and their peeps spent their days...it was mostly sandy dirt left over from generations of hens and their peeps pecking and scratching for bugs and cracked corn. All along the fence-line were lantana bushes, and good luck to the hapless butterfly that ventured there, for those hens had sharp eyes.

In the early days of summer, I was fascinated with those soft yellow babies. For the first few days after hatching, I was not allowed to touch them, so I spent my days waiting. I would sit on the stoop - three wooden steps. They were dry and weather-worn with no paint left at all on them. One had to be pretty careful how she slid her bottom on those steps, since large, dry, splinters were very painful and as common as an excited child's bottom scooting back and forth while she tries to touch a stray chick.

After a week or so, I was allowed to touch the chicks but not to chase them. A handful of cracked corn was a slick enough trick for picking one up, but I was always amazed at the way those peeps moved. They almost peeped in unison and they pecked in formation following the hens movements. They trailed behind her to some degree, but also wandered about freely like a soft wave of yellow feathers. They swam in the warm dusty dooryard as if they floated on some unseen current of air, that drew them in fits and starts across the expanse of that place.

The image really sticks in my mind of watching those peeps and the hen just before a summer thunderstorm. Storms come on quickly here and without much warning, but the hen knew. Just before the thunder started, a cool breeze would waft through the yard, signaling a drop in the air pressure. The hen would begin to scan the sandy expanse for her peeps. Puffing her feathers out and clucking in a low rapid fashion, she would spread her wings down and outward, scuffing them in the dirt and hollowing out a nesting place for them as she called them to herself.

Quickly they would respond to her calls and as the big fat raindrops began to fall, any stragglers would come 'round and make for the safe cover of her body's shelter. They would swarm up under her, disappearing in her down and falling silent as they did so. She would settle herself around them, drawing the draft feathers of her wings under them making a dry, safe nest for them. As the rain would fall in large, steady drops on that parched and dusty dooryard, it would bead up and run in small rivulets around her and the rain beat down on her, yet those peeps would remain safe and dry. That is the scene that comes to me as I read Christ's words How I longed to gather you to me, as a hen gathers her chicks.

That's exactly what Jesus does for us. Calling us in and giving us shelter, bringing us together. In the dooryard of this world, parched and dry, He singles us out and makes a safe place for us to seek shelter from the storms. Drawing us unto Himself as one of His brood, just as I can recall the tender care of those long ago hens, I can experience that the