Courage Through the Fire
With the darkness at our backs, I sat with several women around the campfire on my first Sisterhood hike. I listened to several of them share their stories, but I played it safe, listening, observing, and noticing how these stories were received.
A few years before this hike, my husband and I had found ourselves in a crisis that felt sudden, even though the pressure had been building over time with life getting busier, louder, and harder. We lived with unresolved wounds from our pasts, my unmanaged anxiety, and the challenges of our years as foster parents. It caused us to withdraw from people, but at the time, it felt like people were withdrawing from us. We felt abandoned by those we had trusted to support and walk with us when life was hardest. As our isolation grew, until it engulfed us, and at the peak of it all, I discovered my husband had been unfaithful. Between our pain and the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we became acutely aware of our need for help. It was then that we started reaching out again to a few trustworthy people at church, and we began the work of healing and rebuilding.
In the spring of 2021, I decided to start small and joined a Sisterhood Evenings table group. That fall, I attended my first hike. Not long afterward, to my surprise, I was asked to become a leader. I wasn’t even sure I would hike again, but because I admired the woman who asked me, and I didn’t have a good excuse to say “no,” I agreed.
A few years before this hike, my husband and I had found ourselves in a crisis that felt sudden, even though the pressure had been building over time with life getting busier, louder, and harder. We lived with unresolved wounds from our pasts, my unmanaged anxiety, and the challenges of our years as foster parents. It caused us to withdraw from people, but at the time, it felt like people were withdrawing from us. We felt abandoned by those we had trusted to support and walk with us when life was hardest. As our isolation grew, until it engulfed us, and at the peak of it all, I discovered my husband had been unfaithful. Between our pain and the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we became acutely aware of our need for help. It was then that we started reaching out again to a few trustworthy people at church, and we began the work of healing and rebuilding.
In the spring of 2021, I decided to start small and joined a Sisterhood Evenings table group. That fall, I attended my first hike. Not long afterward, to my surprise, I was asked to become a leader. I wasn’t even sure I would hike again, but because I admired the woman who asked me, and I didn’t have a good excuse to say “no,” I agreed.
I enjoyed being a hiker, but when I started serving women alongside other leaders, God really used it to refine me and bring about deeper healing. It wasn’t one fire, one moment, or one hike that helped shift something in me. My courage grew little by little through the gift of others’ vulnerability, and eventually my own, as I gradually shared around the campfire and opened myself up again and again and again.
When a family emergency occurred out of state, we leaned on our married small group and my hike sisters. They prayed for us, offered support, and took care of our dog so we could travel to be with family. Many of these same people joined us in the fall for regular backyard fires where we kindled deeper friendships and allowed each other to be seen and to be real. This is the fruit of all the pain, all of the showing up, all of the instances of inviting others in and saying yes to such invitations.
When a family emergency occurred out of state, we leaned on our married small group and my hike sisters. They prayed for us, offered support, and took care of our dog so we could travel to be with family. Many of these same people joined us in the fall for regular backyard fires where we kindled deeper friendships and allowed each other to be seen and to be real. This is the fruit of all the pain, all of the showing up, all of the instances of inviting others in and saying yes to such invitations.
At a recent Sisterhood leader retreat, I wrote the words of a lie that I had been believing for a long time. On a slip of paper, I wrote: I do not belong. I am not a friend. I threw it into the fire. In my pocket, on another slip of paper, I wrote the truth that I carry with me, I am a friend; I am safe in community. Sometimes, truth doesn’t feel true. But like the authenticity of gold being revealed by fire, this truth has felt more and more true as I’ve continued to invest in our Sisterhood community.
Fire can comfort or consume, illuminate or destroy, but I’ve also learned that God uses it to refine, restore, and remind us we are not alone.
Fire can comfort or consume, illuminate or destroy, but I’ve also learned that God uses it to refine, restore, and remind us we are not alone.
