Inspiration for The Silver Locket Sisterhood series...

This was sent to me by a very dear friend back in January 2003. I was writing fanfiction at the time, with no thought of writing my own stories.

I started Luck in Love and toyed with the idea of going further.

I wrote A Promise of Possibilities.

Ideas bubbled, and here I am.

Amazing what a little inspiration will accomplish when you follow where He leads.

"Malachi 3:3 says: "He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver."

This verse puzzled some women in a Bible study and they wondered what this statement meant about the character and nature of God.  One of the women offered to find out the process of refining silver and get back to the group at their next study.

That week the woman visited a silversmith.  As she watched him work, he held a piece of silver over the fire and let it heat up.  He explained that in refining silver, one needed to hold the silver in the middle of the fire where the flames were hottest so as to burn away all the impurities.  The woman thought about God holding us in such a hot spot, as she thought again about the verse in Malachi.

She asked the smith if it were true that he had to sit there in front of the fire the whole time the silver was being refined.  The man answered yes, he not only had to sit there holding the silver, but he had to keep his eyes on the silver the entire time it was in the fire.  If the silver was left a moment too long in the flames, it would be destroyed.

The woman was silent for a moment.  Then she asked, 'How do you know when the silver is fully refined?'

The smith smiled and answered, 'Oh, that's easy -- I know it is ready when I see my image in it.'

If you are feeling the heat of the fire, remember that God has His eye on you; He will not let you burn so that you are destroyed, but He will keep watching you until He sees His image in you."