Rising Through The Fire Blog Series — Final Chapter There was a time I thought the fire was proof of failure. Proof that I wasn’t praying right. Proof that I wasn’t strong enough. Proof that I deserved what was happening. I used to look at my life and see trauma stacked so high it felt like identity. Depression. Grief. Spiritual confusion. Abandonment. Self-doubt. Faith that felt fractured. And somewhere in all of it, I started believing those things were me. Not experiences.

Michael Jordan missed more than 9,000 shots throughout his legendary basketball career. These failures didn't define him. They became his stepping stones to success. "Your mistakes don't define you" - we've all heard these powerful words and wondered about their origin. Oprah Winfrey shares this belief. "Failure is just life trying to move us in another direction," she says. Walt Disney's story tells a similar tale. He went bankrupt before building his empire. Each experience