As soon as I felt the flames, I didn’t know what was going on. Of course, not real fire, but it burned all the same. The fire that starts with a spark – an unexpected challenge, a missed opportunity, a disappointment – and then in an instant, it’s an inferno, and you’re right in the center of it, and you don’t know how to get out.
For me, the fire got ignited during my last year in medical school. It was supposed to be that time when everything would come together: the culmination of years of hardwork, late nights, and sacrifices. Instead, everything started falling apart. The pressure was immense, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t keep up. My grades started falling apart, and with them, my confidence. This perpetual feeling of failing preyed upon my mind, and consequently left me with feelings of anxiety and exhaustion. I felt like I was drowning, and nobody could see that.
But the worst was yet to come, all because I couldn’t admit it – not to my friends, not to my family, not even to myself. Always the strong one, always the one who had it all worked out. Admitting defeat was the struggle inside. I did what I thought I had to do: I kept going, kept pretending everything was fine even as the fire inside me grew hotter and hotter.
It was on one of those nights, after another day of not being able to take it any more in the hospital, when I sat in my car and could not even lift a finger. Too tired to move, too drained to cry, I just sat there staring at the dashboard, feeling the weight of everything bearing down upon me. That is when I realized just how far into the fire I had gone.
The story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego from the Bible came to mind in that very moment – how they had been cast into a literal, hot furnace for refusing to bow to the golden statue of King Nebuchadnezzar. As a child, I had always marveled at their faith – at how they had stood strong in the face of death. Alone, even in my car, I wondered then if that would have been me. I did not feel brave. I felt weak, defeated, and very, very alone.
In the story though, something miraculous happened. When the king looked into the furnace, he saw not three men, but four. The fourth figure, who appeared like a son of the gods, was there with them, walking in the fire. They were not alone, and because of that, they were not consumed.
I shut my eyes and sent up a desperate prayer – not for deliverance, but for strength; for something, anything, for me to hold on to. It was then that I felt it – a presence, a stillness, like a laid hand on my shoulder. It wasn’t an instant solution – the fire didn’t go out. But neither was I alone. Things did not get any easier soon – over the next few weeks. The challenges were still there, the pressure still intense. But something had shifted in me that night in the car. I started to let go of my need to have it all together, to be perfect. I started opening up: first to myself and then to others. I could admit that I was struggling; I needed help. It counted as one of the toughest things I’d ever done, but somehow it felt kind of liberating.
I began to see that the place of vulnerability wasn’t weakness; it was strength. The fire had scorched away my pride, the fear of being seen as less than perfect. In the fire, I found something deeper – a faith that was no longer about believing in God’s power to save but trusting in His presence with me right in the flames.
There was another in the fire. Because of Him, I was able to walk through the flames unscathed and unbound. This fire that once would have consumed me to ruin became the very thing that set me free. So when the fire surrounds you, know you are never alone. Someone is walking with you in that fire – Jesus is His Name – and He’s making something beautiful out of the trials. And on the other side of the fire, you’ll find that it didn’t burn you up; it merely refined you.
Behold, the words of Daniel 3:25!
“Look! I see four men walking around in the fire, unbound and unharmed, and the fourth looks like the son of the gods!”