Some people grow up believing in God from the very beginning. Others spend years running. Not always intentionally. Sometimes life simply becomes loud enough that faith stays buried underneath survival, ambition, distraction, pain, or the constant pressure to keep moving forward. That was much of my story for a long time.

I believed there was a higher power. Working in healthcare made it difficult not to. Over the years as a nurse, I witnessed moments that left me questioning whether everything in this world could really be explained away so easily. I saw people survive things they should not have survived. I saw moments that felt impossible to explain logically. I saw suffering, death, healing, and moments that felt deeply spiritual even when nobody around me spoke about them that way.

One memory that stayed with me happened early in my nursing career. I was walking through a quiet hallway in a nursing home late at night and could hear voices somewhere in the distance. I followed the sound, thinking residents were awake, but the further I walked, the more disconnected the voices felt from anything physical around me. Maybe there was an explanation for it. Maybe there wasn’t. But I remember leaving that hallway with a feeling I could never fully shake.

Moments like that accumulated over time. Not enough to fully surrender. But enough to make me wonder. Still, even with all of that, I kept God at a distance for most of my life. The deeper I became consumed by work, ambition, stress, isolation, and trying to carry everything on my own, the further I pushed Him away. Looking back now, I can see moments where I believe God was reaching for me long before I ever truly reached back.

That is part of what Chosen from the Fire became about for me.

Not simply being rescued from pain, but realizing God had been present through the smoke long before I recognized Him clearly.

The title carries multiple meanings. One part of it reflects the moment when the veil finally lifts and someone realizes God is real in a deeply personal way. Another part reflects what happens afterward; the realization that grace still reaches us even after years spent running, doubting, resisting, or believing we were too far gone. When that realization finally hits, shame often comes with it.

Not always shame over one specific action.

Sometimes shame over how long we ignored Him.

That became deeply personal for me after the prayer experience I described in Shadowed by Mercy. Once I truly acknowledged God’s presence in my life, I began looking backward differently. I could suddenly see moments throughout my life where I believe He had been guiding, protecting, warning, or calling me even when I refused to recognize it. That realization was overwhelming, because when the smoke clears, we often begin seeing ourselves honestly for the first time too.

The song says:

                                 “Ashes on my soul from debts I could not pay…”

That line is not just about sin in the traditional sense. It is about the weight people carry from years spent chasing things that never fully satisfy... pride, control, addiction, ambition, selfishness, distraction, bitterness, isolation, or simply trying to build life apart from God.

The deeper I explored faith, the more I realized something powerful: Many people are not actually running from God because they hate Him. They are running because they do not believe grace still applies to them.

The pre-chorus says:

                                     “Wasn’t sure I’d be forgiven
                                      Thought I’d burn here in my flames”

I think many people understand that feeling more than they admit. There are moments where guilt becomes so heavy people quietly assume they are disqualified from peace, healing, purpose, or mercy. They believe they waited too long, failed too much, hurt too many people, or wandered too far away.

But grace does something unexpected. Grace enters the fire. That became one of the most life-changing realizations for me. God was not waiting for me to become perfect before reaching toward me. He met me in the middle of exhaustion, grief, confusion, doubt, shame, and depression.
 

During one of the darkest seasons of my separation, I remember praying something I had never truly admitted before:

                “God, I don’t know what You want from me anymore. I don’t know why I’m still here.                   Please just show me my purpose… and bring me home.”

That prayer came from deep exhaustion. Grief has a way of stripping people down emotionally until they no longer know what they are supposed to hold onto, but something unexpected happened afterward.

I started writing.

Obsessively.

Songs. Reflections. A memoir. This entire project slowly began unfolding piece by piece, and the more I wrote, the more I found myself moving closer to God instead of further away. The more I explored my own life honestly, the more I began recognizing His presence within it, and eventually, I realized something important:

Purpose is not reserved for perfect people. We are all capable of reaching someone.

That truth became even clearer through conversations with a friend of mine who plays in a well-known thrash metal band. He spent years wrestling with whether he should return to music after giving much of his life to ministry and faith. What struck me deeply was realizing he could reach people that many churches never could. And through his own journey, he eventually witnessed people around him encounter Christ in powerful ways.

That changed how I understood calling.

Some people are chosen to reach hospitals.
Some through music.
Some through prisons.
Some through business.
Some through brokenness.
Some through quiet conversations nobody else ever sees.

But all of us have the ability to reach someone.

That is the deeper meaning behind Chosen from the Fire. Not that certain people are special, but that grace can redeem even the places we once believed were ruined beyond repair.

The bridge says:

     
                      “My mess into a message
                        My pain into a song”

Honestly, that may describe this entire project better than anything else I could say.

Because this journey did not begin through confidence.

It began through collapse.

Through grief.
Through questions.
Through surrender.
Through finally admitting I could not carry life alone anymore.

And somehow, through all of that, God kept reaching anyway.

That is what still overwhelms me most.

Not that I found Him, but that He never stopped reaching for me through the fire.