Temper: Improve the hardness and elasticity of steel/metal by reheating and then cooling it.
Act as a neutralizing or counterbalancing force to something
To make stronger and more resilient through hardship
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Temper. A word. An ugly verb, indeed.
I peak around the hedge looking at you, you awful thing, you. I won’t come out to face you, no. I will stay hidden from you and your bludgeoning work just as long as I happily can.
Temper. You are an awful one, you. The anguish of your heat seizes every vessel in us, and we cry the silent cry of inward distress, hidden, because it is too much for others to see.
The diagnosis, the rejection, the heartache, the dream up-ended, the wreck, the loneliness, the failure, the infernal boredom, the loss, the disappointment, the betrayal, the longing unfulfilled, these devastations of humanity await us for reasons held in wisdom's vault. They will temper us or break us, true.
Tempered glass and tempered steel are tough. Tempered people saw the heat coming as they ran away. It overcame them anyway.
Temper, a word to make me tougher? Able to withstand more? What of this? Tough, not brittle. Ugh. You are a demand I shrink from, you. You are a counterbalancing force, you. But why you so hard on me?
I, a throng of desire unleashed within
I, a throng of desire for purpose, for comfort, for experiences, for people, for dreams, for many, many, many things
You, an ache that throbs men into fetal positions, you.
You don’t seem to care about my feelings, my leaps and my bounds into bliss.
You, though awful, are patience and poise. You bring balance and equilibrium, you. But how dare you.....you!
Did I ever once ask for you in the riotous peels of this life of desire? No.
I don’t like you at all, you.
You moderate me. You teach me when I am not listening. You turn me when I’m not giving in. You stop me when I’m running wild. You speak and get a message through the locked door, the bolted door, the unbreakable wall comes apart. You arrest me. You will be heard and reckoned with. You will temper me, You.
I seem to have two powers pushing my life onward. One is the power of desire, and the other is motivation of pain. I must steer the rudder, this vessel-me with a singular holy aim. If I were all desire, I might veer off and bury myself somewhere deep and never come up and if I were all pain, I would veer away from the aim and bury myself somewhere deep and never be seen again.
I need you both, desire and pain? But I hate one and love the other. I only love the nice one.
Pain tempers me?
Pain tempers me.
Temper me. Amen.
He was a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief.
Isaiah 53:3
Although He was a Son, He learned obedience through what He suffered.
Hebrews 5:8
