Sandi Hester

See, I have refined you, though not as silver; I have tested you in the furnace of affliction.  Isaiah 48:10

This third I will bring into the fire; I will refine them like silver and test them like gold.  They will call on My name and I will answer them; I will say, ‘They are my people,’ and they will say, ‘The Lord is our God.’  Zechariah 13:9 

I have to say before I begin this post that I’m wondering if this painting, along with the poem that inspired it, is going to make sense to anyone else but me.  I usually run my art by Grady, because sometimes other people don’t get what I was trying to do with a painting – this could be one of those 🙂 – we’ll see.

I have a poem in the back of my bible that I recently came across that touched me (as it does every time I read it) and inspired me.  The poem makes me think of Moses and the burning bush.  Exodus 3:3 says, “Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up”.  So here’s, my vision of the burning bush and the poem that inspired this painting…

“Your holy Fire now burns within and purges every secret sin; my life the bush, Your life the Flame that leaves me nevermore the same.  A heart like Yours, my one desire; do Your work, Refiner’s Fire.”  ~Jennifer Kennedy Dean