Before we hop into this - at the end of the post I have a music video I shared. This song has always been there by for me in the hard times. If you are interested - please enjoy! I have also put the lyrics to a beautiful song below, which summarizes the process of God's refinement in our lives.

As I look back at my wife when I first met her, she was (and still is) a champion. I had never seen a light burn so bright, so strong. Nothing could put her out, and let me tell you—life sure had tried. Her dad had suffered two open-heart surgeries, and while we didn’t know it at the time, he was about to have his third. At the same time we were going through this surgery, we faced some of our closest friends turning on us, pulling our names through the mud publicly. My wife specifically lost almost half of her friends to what later was revealed to be lies, and many of those people were too embarrassed to come back. We lost her uncle to fentanyl a few years back. Before the surgeries, they had been through two bankruptcies and were (unknowingly) involved in the world’s second-largest Ponzi scheme the U.S. had ever seen, resulting in them quite literally losing everything. My wife, at the age of 10, held her little brother and dogs as she watched her parents and older brother plead with federal agents to remove everything from their house that had value, take their cars, and potentially their house. She had grown up going with her mom to rescue other family members from drug houses and other unsavory/dangerous places. They adopted their cousin, who became the oldest brother, who came from a broken house where horrible things had happened to him. I am not saying these things to gain any pity for the trials we have gone through, but to paint how much I admire her for keeping her flame of joy alive.

Despite all this, a few years ago, the thoughts and cracks from this past started to catch up, and we didn’t see it. They were “creeping cracks,” so to say, and God was screaming at us to turn to Him and listen. But did we? No. Things were good from what we could see. We had just gotten married, I had a great job, we had a home, and the family was healthy. Through all this, the cracks were working their way through us. Then, by God’s grace, we had our first child, a beautiful baby boy. By this time, COVID had come and passed. During COVID, my wife and I lost our apartment as the cost of living skyrocketed. Graciously, my in-laws—her parents—offered for us to move in with them, and we did. During COVID, in her childhood home, we got used to staying inside our little room. There was a sense of peace in this room that later would be our downfall.

Suddenly, the room where we brought our baby boy home and spent our nights became the only place we felt peace. We had stopped listening and looking to God for comfort, convinced our family had all these faults, and our only way out was to get away from them. Come 2024, God decided He had enough of asking nicely and decided to allow me to lose my job. The job that was paying for us to escape, to ignore those we love, to run—and now all we had was to turn to God and ask those we love for help so we could feed our baby boy and pay our bills. God ripped us out of that room. The cracks that had been creeping burst and broke us. Suddenly, I was faced with the truth that God had been telling me: I wasn’t a present parent, I had an addiction to gaming—spending over 6 hours a day disconnected from reality—I was losing my family slowly. Anxiety struck my family like a semi we didn’t see coming. Suddenly, my wife—that burning light—began to struggle with everyday tasks, things that would sound absolutely insane to think you could struggle with. God was saying: I am going to rebuild you two. I am going to put you through my purifying fire, and it is going to be hard but good. Truthfully, we are still there in that fire, and every day we feel that hammer of God come down on the hot metal that is ourselves. Each day we grow stronger, and sometimes the next day is harder, having us ask, “Are we actually moving forward?” But we just hear—Trust Me and have faith—echo in our heads.

My dad at our wedding told a story about how swords were made and how the smith reheats and folds the metal over and over—hammering the hot metal until eventually it is a sharp, strong blade. This was a beautiful story, and the one thing I would add is the metal doesn’t know that it is being melded into this beautiful tool that is sharp enough to cut a leaf falling on it from above. The metal has to trust the smith that during the process, he won’t hammer too hard and break him or fold a crack into the quenched metal, making it brittle. God is our master smith, and faith is our fire.

I never thought I would be reassuring the bright, burning flame that is my wife that she does have the ability to get up and walk to get water without passing out, that she can clean the house, that she can breathe even though she feels she can’t, that she is as strong as she always has been. Satan doesn’t need you to not believe in God to get hold of you. He just needs to get you to doubt yourself, show you where you are weak. THAT is where God comes in. The Holy Spirit says, “YES, you are weak, BUT I am unshakable, unbreakable, and all-powerful.” As my wife and I sat there crying, we recalled the story of Peter who walked on water with God. WHEN Peter had faith, he was able to walk on water with Jesus. But the second he looked away from Him, Peter fell.

Most of us have moments that were hard or are currently hard. Oftentimes, those moments can leave cracks, and if we don’t look in faith to God—that He is going to fill those cracks and grow us—then those cracks will grow and start to affect areas of our lives: anxiety, depression, anger, annoyance, fatigue, etc. These are emotions, not states that we should remain in. So what are you going to do about it? Look to God, jump up and shake out those feelings (literally—jump up and dance around), sing, laugh, and whatever you do—don’t just sit there in the self-pity.

I know that sounds harsh at the end, but it is true. The biggest trap my wife and I faced was our own self-pity. I can’t tell you how many times we started sentences with, “I would, but I just feel like…” or “I am trying. I’m just so…” Our reasons varied: we would feel like God should have finished fixing us by now, we were trying so hard, we were so tired. This is your own biggest trap—your own chain that you are putting on—because as much as we don’t like our pain and suffering, it is more comfortable than the path to get out.

So what will it be? Persistent suffering—or be reforged and come out even stronger than you were before? Both will be hard, but one will end, one will better you, and one is a path to joy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7UE_EuFLj4

What does it mean to be brought low?

"Walk Through Fire" By Ben Fuller (Video Here)

I was worn down
I was snuffed out
Nowhere left to go
Heart heavy
Soul weary
My world a cloud of smoke

Turns out
You were waiting in the ashes
And now
I can say

Every flame
Forged my faith
The inferno might have burned me but it set my hope ablaze
Every coal
Refined my soul
It only made my darkest days a whole lot brighter
Thank God I had to walk through fire

You were faithful
More than able
You never lost control
You were speaking
You were reaching
In the heat of it all

Turns out it was there that I was changed

Every flame
Forged my faith
The inferno might have burned me but it set my hope ablaze
Every coal refined my soul
It only made my darkest days a whole lot brighter
Thank God I had to walk through fire

Because You said You'd never leave me
And You said You won't forsake me
Whatever comes, I will not be afraid (Be afraid)
You've already gone before me
You've already gone behind
In the end, I know I'll look back and I'll say

Every flame
Forged my faith
The inferno might have burned me but it set my hope ablaze
Every coal
Refined my soul
It only made my darkest days a whole lot brighter
Thank God I had to walk through fire