Walk Anyway Devotional

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What if your suffering isn’t a detour—but the very road you’re meant to walk?

In this reflective devotional, I share the defining loss of my early life: both of my parents gone by the age of five. That rupture didn’t just take them—it shattered the basic assumption that life is safe, that the world is predictable. While other children grew up under the illusion of stability, I was forced to confront the fragility of existence far too soon.

But here’s the paradox: from the depth of that pain emerged something more than survival. It gave birth to meaning. Not comfort. Not ease. Meaning.

Drawing on voices like Nietzsche, Jung, Dostoevsky, Solzhenitsyn, and Lewis, we explore the brutal but transformative idea that suffering isn’t life gone wrong—it is life. War. Betrayal. Death. Disease. These aren’t interruptions to the human story. They are the story. The real question isn’t whether you’ll suffer. It’s what you’ll do with it.

Pain can destroy you—or it can forge you into something dangerous to despair.

Healing doesn’t look like forgetting or “moving on.” It looks like returning to the site of your wound again and again, each time with a little more strength, a little more clarity. Like chains loosening—one link at a time. That’s not regression. That’s redemption in motion.

Your trauma is not your identity. But it may be the very soil where something eternal takes root.

Some wounds are healed. Others become holy.

This episode isn’t just for those in crisis—it’s for anyone who’s ever stared into the dark and dared to believe that light could still speak. If you—or someone you love—is struggling to find meaning in the chaos, let this be a reminder: grace is not found in spite of suffering, but often through it.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
One of the hardest things that I've experienced in
life is settling in tounexpected chaos.
When I was very young, my lifewas completely upended.

(00:24):
Both my parents died within twoyears of each other.
I was five years old when mymother passed the second death
there, and it created a deep,deep, deep insecurity within me
that life is very unpredictable,it's not safe.

(00:44):
Chaos can come in and justsnatch people away from you
without warning, and it set aprecedence in me of how to kind
of anticipate life, and I wasliving in a completely different
world than especially peoplewho are within my school of of

(01:07):
the human experience that wewere.
We were having the outlook thatwe had for the future, and mine
was one with deep, deep, deepuncertainty and insecurity and
life.
It just doesn't offer anybody aneat little script to follow.
What it will hand us inevitablyis some form of chaos, whether

(01:30):
that's suffering withoutexplanation, trials without
warning, pain without an apology.
But what I've learned is thesuffering isn't meaningless.
In fact, it may be the mostmeaningful thing that you're
going to face in your life, andcrisis that we're living through
isn't a detour, but it is theroad itself, and so the question

(01:53):
we have to ask sometimes iswhat if the pain isn't a
punishment but it's preparation?
And there are examples ofunnecessary suffering.
That's not what I'm talkingabout.
Examples of unnecessarysuffering, that's not what I'm
talking about.
But in this devotional we'regoing to face the uncomfortable
truth that life wounds us alland yet in those wounds we may
discover who we truly are.

(02:15):
I draw from voices likeNietzsche, dostoevsky,
Solzhenitsyn, young, lewis thatthese doors have kind of been
opened up to me by other peoplewho I've listened to.
And this isn't for abstractionor survival, but it's so you can
walk forward, even wheneverything in you is screaming

(02:37):
to give up and there's kind of anonsensicalness to the chaos,
the trauma that you're facing.
You can carry your suffering ina way that shapes not only your
life but the life that comesafter you, generations of people
who are unseen.
You can stop generationalcurses, things like generational
poverty, things like thedomestic abuse.

(03:00):
So the question isn't whetheryou're going to suffer or not in
life.
You will.
The question is, what will youdo with the pain that you're
experiencing?
It always has been war, famine,plague, deception, loss.

(03:29):
These aren't interruptions tothe story.
They're a main narrative in thestory, and crisis isn't a
glitch in the matrix.
It's part of the matrix and you, you were born into it.
You don't get to choose thetime that you live in or the

(03:52):
weight that you're handed.
You only choose how you carryit.
And in this time, this age ofdeep uncertainty, everything is
a fog.
Your eyes can be fooled, yourears can be manipulated, videos
are lies, audio can be lying,even your own heart lies.

(04:16):
Often people will say trustyour feelings, follow your heart
.
Scripture says the heart isdeceitful above all things.
Sometimes it'll teach you toforsake things for pleasure.
Other times it'll put theweight of false condemnation on

(04:41):
you.
And still you're expected tostand, not because it's easy,
but because it's right.
Your pain, people willacknowledge it, maybe, but when

(05:01):
it's time to carry weight, toshow up to build something that
matters, they expect you tofunction, limping or not.
Maybe you started 200 metersbehind everybody else from the
starting line in life.
Maybe your family has beenbehind for generations, but no

(05:24):
one's going to slow down for you.
That's harsh, but it's alsofreeing, because it means the
question is no longer will theynotice my pain, but rather what
will I do with it?
Nietzsche would say you becomewho you are, not who the world

(05:48):
demands, not who the algorithmis designing, but the version of
you that crawled from thewreckage and chose to keep going
.
Dostoevsky would say there isglory in suffering rightly.
You're not called to be thefastest.
You're called to be faithful,to love even when unloved, to

(06:15):
forgive even when unseen, and tolive your story and live it
like it matters, even if theworld forgets your name.
Jung would warn us do not runfrom your shadow, because the
shadow you avoid becomes thedemon your children inherit.

(06:39):
Solzhenitsyn would demand truthIn an empire of lies.
He'd say this let the lie comeinto the world, but not through
you and Lewis, he would whisperof grace.
He'd say pain is God'smegaphone to rouse a deaf world.

(07:06):
Maybe your suffering isn'tpunishment, maybe it's
preparation.
The world does not revolvearound your trauma.
It never will.
But that doesn't mean you'repowerless.
You were born into conflict andwhile others may chase comfort

(07:31):
or collapse into their despair,you can walk another path, a
path of sacrifice, ofperseverance, of truth.
You don't run to win trophies.
You run so your children canstart closer to the line.
You run to break chains thatweren't yours to carry.

(07:55):
You run to plant seeds that youmay never see bloom.
And at the end, when you limpacross that finish line, tired,
scarred, forgotten by men,heaven will stand, because God
sees what man forgets.

(08:16):
So walk anyways.
What other choice do you have?
Walk anyways.
What other choice do you have?
I'll leave you with these threequestions what if the part of

(08:38):
your suffering you've calledpunishment is actually the
threshold of your becoming?
Is actually the threshold ofyour becoming?
What truth have you kept buried?
Not because it's hidden, butbecause you fear who you'd

(09:04):
become if you faced it In thesilence, when no one else sees
and nothing moves.
Are you being forgotten or areyou being formed?
If you're still standing, evenbarely, even if it's a Mortal

(09:28):
Kombat, fatality kind of stance,where you're wobbling, getting
ready to be finished by the lifeyou're experiencing, you've
already begun.
The burden that you carry inthis life is real, it's heavy
and it may not go away tomorrow.
But the call is not to collapsebeneath it, it's to stand up,

(09:52):
to shoulder it, to walk forwardand attach the right meaning to
it.
And that's the paradox thatyour suffering can break you or
it can shape you into somethingsolid, something dangerous to
darkness.
So take heart, you're not meantto carry that all by yourself.
Christ didn't say avoid theburden.

(10:15):
He said come to me all who areweary and heavy laden and I will
give you rest.
That's not a sentiment, it's alifeline.
There is rest, but it's notfound in escape.
It's found lifeline.
There is rest, but it's notfound in escape.
It's found in surrender.
There's grace, not just toendure it but to be transformed

(10:36):
by it.
And some wounds will be healedin this life and others will
become the very places where Godmeets us most intimately.
And sometimes the healingdoesn't come all at once.
We want that, we want just aquick fix.
But sometimes it comes likelinks of a chain being unwrapped
, one at a time, slowly,painfully and purposefully.

(11:00):
It would be like you'restanding there and you have
chains from the top of yourshoulders to your feet and
you're on a spool and God ispulling you, pulling the chains
off, and as you come aroundyou're facing the trauma or the
problem all over again.
You're like why am I facingthis again?
But each time that you spin,you're getting one chain length
lighter coming out of it.

(11:20):
And so you spin through somepain and the same weakness and
you're wondering why has it goneaway?
You're getting one chain lengthlighter coming out of it.
And so you spend through somepain and the same weakness and
you're wondering why has it goneaway?
But you're not where you were.
You're one chain length lighter.
And that's not a failure,that's sanctification.
That is God working with you,not in spite of you.

(11:43):
John Carpenter once put it well.
He said look at the world andyou will see the horror, the
cruelty, and then somehow stillyou find the beauty.
And that's the real miracle,and it is To see clearly and
still choose love, still choosehope, still walk forward.

(12:05):
You're not in your past, you'renot your pain, you are what you
do with it.
So walk anyways, not becauseit's easy, but because it's true
and because truth is the onlything that can carry you through

(12:28):
.
I hope that you were encouragedby this and you found another
small piece of the puzzle in howto orientate yourself and
navigate the human experiencethat we call life.
If you know of anybody who'sstruggling themselves they're
really going through it feelfree to share this with them.
Sometimes one word in the rightmoment is enough to change the
next step or even change thetrajectory of our lives.

(12:50):
I remember listening to a guywho was working with a golf
instructor and the golfinstructor watched him struggle
and struggle, and struggle andhe just kind of came over and
chuckled.
He said, okay, what am I doingwrong?
He's like, well, you're nothitting the ball right.
And he's like, okay, what am Idoing wrong?
He's like, well, you're nothitting the ball right.
And he's like, well, that'sself-evident.
And he started cussing as golfinstructor, he's like no, what I
mean is if, when you hit theball, if it's just like a couple
millimeters this way, tiltingthe club this way, or a couple

(13:12):
of millimeters this way, it'sgoing to change the trajectory
of the ball.
And that the farther him somepointers, and then he became
more consistent.
And so for us, like, when we're,you know, going to share
something with somebody?
Sometimes it's hard to quantifywhat's going to be the actual

(13:33):
impact of this Like, is it evenworth it?
Like, what are they going tothink?
And we hear often, you know,talk is cheap, talk is cheap.
People want to see actions andthere's merit to that.
But scripture tells us that thepower of life and death is in
the tongue.
And when Jesus is coming in inRevelations, it's actually a
two-edged sword coming out ofhis mouth not being wielded by

(13:55):
his hands.
Out of the abundance of theheart, the mouth speaks when God
spoke and light came into being.
So we don't want to discreditthe merit of words, and so all
I'm saying with that is beingable to pour into people, be an
encouragement, edify, upliftthem.

(14:15):
So if you feel like this wouldresonate with somebody or be
something they need, don'thesitate to pass it on.
Until next time, take care.