Karat is a unit of purity used for gold. Carat is a unit of weight for diamonds and jewels. (Check howstuffworks.com). I created this blog in a fluid, topsy-turvey, crazy time of life. Writing, I have come to learn through this time, keeps me grounded and gives me an outlet for everything I feel inside that I don’t know how to tell people. And in this fluid, topsy-turvey, crazy time, where I cry a lot and feel lonely and sad half of the time, I am in a period of REFINEMENT. Refining who I am. Refining what I want from life. Refining where I want to be in 1 year, 5 years, 10 years. Refined through fire is what I like to say.

This phase of life is HARD. I feel lost and confused. I wonder what I am still doing in CA, with an underpaid job where ‘helping people’ has taken a whole new meaning. Where rent is too high to pay. Where my best friends keep moving from. Where I am battling depression, bad habits, and health issues. When my parents and closest support group are across the country 3,000 mi away. I wonder… and I trust. Zechariah 13:9 (NLT) says, “I will bring that group through the fire and make them pure. I will refine them like silver and purify them like gold. They will call on my name, and I will answer them. I will say, ‘These are my people,’ and they will say, ‘The LORD is our God.’” Refinement is just what happens to gold before it becomes pure. It goes through fire. After the fire it is lovely, soft, and 24-Karats is the single most pure form that gold can take.

Also from the Bible, 1 Peter 1:7 (NLT) says, “These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold—though your faith is far more precious than mere gold. So when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world.” So, I embrace the fire I am living because through the trials and pain, for His glory! I will be pure, lovely, and a better ME. Jules. Juliandra.