Crucible Experience

Are You Available: Listening for the Call of Your Heart

Our greatest challenges become grist for the mill—the stuff—of our transformation. 

Loss, disappointment, physical struggle—the difficult, traumatic and uncomfortable—these are crucible moments in life that everyone experiences. 

A crucible is a container that can tolerate extreme temperatures.

A crucible moment is a turning point, a pivotal moment in our lives when something within us gets forged in the fire. And from that moment new choices arise, new decisions reveal themselves.

You are the crucible, the container that gets fired again and again in the forge of life’s challenges.

Reflecting on the story arc of your own life, you may be able to clearly identify several crucible moments that created new openings and led to a change in direction. 

Examples of Crucibles in Life

What were your crucible moments?

The moments that irrevocably changed you and altered the course of your life? 

For most of my adult life I’ve experienced a persistent feeling that there must be something more, something else that I was supposed to do or should be doing. Even as I was busy raising a family, building a practice and contributing to the community, I frequently felt a kind of low grade anxiety and didn’t know where it was coming from.

For years I journaled and prayed my way through, listened for guidance, and followed where it led. I was often unsure, sometimes scared, but in the end willing to trust the way, and remain fully engaged in life. 

A series of crucible moments brought me face to face with my own mortality and shook me to my core. These experiences set me on a course I simply could not ignore or even begin to fathom in its depth. The only thing to do was make myself available and follow where I felt myself being led. 

I’d read somewhere once, “the only ability needed to serve God is availability.” 

I was haunted by what that meant, afraid of what it might ask of me. But over time, I began to understand it as the call of the heart. 

When you hear the call of your heart, a question arises: Are you listening? 

Another question naturally follows: Are you available?

Because the only ability needed to answer the call of your heart is availability.

Often, when the heart calls to us, we are unavailable. Busy with more pressing concerns and the overriding sense of urgency that occupies the mind. 

Busy thinking, planning, and making things happen, often to great excess. This is how we’ve been conditioned, where we have placed our value, while the ability to hear the voice of our heart grows faint. 

What is the call of your heart? What is the burning desire? The deep longing? The unmet need? 

What is the clarion call to action that you must listen for and respond to? 

Could this be what all our crucible moments lead us to? 

Our availability is an exercise in trust and surrender; to let go of the control we think we have and follow the sure guidance we are given. 

Are you listening? Are you available?