Intro — The Friend Who Answers the First Ring
There are moments in life when everything feels louder than your own heartbeat.
Grief is heavy. Decisions feel impossible. And even the smallest task can feel like proof that you’re failing at holding it all together.
In those moments, we don’t need solutions.
We don’t need fixing.
We need someone who knows how to sit with the mess—and still see the beauty beneath it.
Sometimes healing doesn’t arrive as a miracle.
Sometimes it arrives as a phone call.
A steady voice.
A reminder of who you are when grief tries to rewrite your story.
This is a story about one of those voices.
About the kind of friendship that doesn’t run from chaos—but steps into it with truth, humour, faith, and unwavering presence.
A Friend Who Bore the Burden With Me
Excerpt from Book 1 Beauty For Ashes: Refined In The Fire
The original breakthrough – This newly released edition includes over 100 new pages with added reflection and action, expanded stories, and never-before-seen photos that take readers deeper into the journey of faith, healing, and refinement.
Jon DesRoches was the first true friend I made when I began attending Smythe Street Church, and from that first moment, we just clicked. There was something about Jon’s energy—light-hearted, joyful, and unapologetically himself—that instantly put people at ease. He was the kind of person who could diffuse any heavy moment with a perfectly timed joke or a playful smirk. Nothing ever felt too serious when Jon was around, and yet, underneath the laughter and easygoing charm was a depth of faith and friendship that would prove life-saving on more than one occasion.
We shared countless late nights that turned into early mornings, tucked into couches or sprawled on floors, telling stories, howling with laughter, watching movies, and digging into conversations about life, love, purpose, and God. Jon had a way of showing up fully—of listening with his heart and making you feel like, in that moment, nothing else mattered more than what you were going through.
One of the most pivotal moments of our friendship was the missions trip we took together to Africa. It was more than a trip—it was a reckoning of the soul. The experience forever changed the trajectory of our lives, anchoring our bond in something bigger than ourselves. It planted seeds of compassion, courage, and calling in us both. Over the 27 years of our friendship, we’ve laughed until we couldn’t breathe and cried until there were no more tears. We’ve loved and lost and loved again—and held each other steady through it all.
But there was one moment that stands above the rest—a moment that marked the depth of our connection in a way I’ll never forget.
My fiancé had just passed. My brother Alex was in the hospital. I was home on bereavement leave from the cruise ships, wrapped in a cocoon of grief so heavy it felt like drowning. I was staying in the little house I had purchased a few years earlier on Davis Street, and I could barely make sense of anything. That carpet in the living room—I hated it. It was ugly and stained and reminded me of everything I couldn’t control. And so, one day, I did the only thing I could control: I grabbed a pair of scissors and started cutting. I didn’t even move the furniture. I just hacked away at it, piece by piece, desperate for some kind of progress, some kind of relief.
I didn’t have the money to replace it. I didn’t have a plan. What I had was grief, and this was the pile I chose to attack with every ounce of my sorrow and rage. Once the carpet was gone, I discovered something unexpected—original hardwood floors, hidden underneath. It felt like a metaphor: beauty beneath the mess, waiting to be revealed. So the next day, with zero experience and more emotion than skill, I marched over to A to Z Rentals, loaded a floor sander into the trunk of my tiny Kia, and hauled it back home.
I was determined to make those floors shine.
But sanding is no joke. I was exhausted, covered in dust, and halfway through the first pass when it all came crashing down. Overwhelmed, convinced I’d ruined the wood—and maybe everything else in my life—I crumbled. I stood there, sobbing, the weight of the world pressing down on me, and I did the only thing I knew to do. I called Jon.
He answered on the first ring, like he always did.
Standing over the raw, sanded wood, I cried into the phone, “I ruined it. I’ve ruined everything.”
But Jon knew. He knew this wasn’t about the floor. This was about the heartbreak, the helplessness, the unbearable grief.
And then, with a voice full of calm and conviction, he said something I will never forget:
“Now, Bird, you’ve made it through 100% of life’s battles so far. Your track record proves you’ve got what it takes. This floor is not ruined. You’re not ruined. You’re just not finished. Start that sander up. Finish what you started.”
That one phone call—that one voice on the other end of the chaos—lifted the fog just enough to let the light back in. And so I did. I picked up the sander and kept going. I didn’t just finish the floor that day—I took the first step toward healing.
Jon was right. Sometimes we just need someone to remind us that we’re not broken—we’re just in the middle of becoming. And sometimes, all it takes is one friend, one moment, one word of truth, to change the course of your life.
Today, Jon and I are both Realtors with Exit Realty in Fredericton. We even shared an office for a while, until we both started hitting our goals so hard we outgrew the space and moved into our own. But no matter how much time passes or how successful we become, Jon will always be more than a colleague. He’s a brother. A lifeline. A voice in the dark reminding me of who I am when I forget.
Reflection — You’re Not Ruined, You’re Not Finished
What Jon gave me that day wasn’t advice about flooring.
It wasn’t motivation wrapped in clichés.
It was perspective.
Grief has a way of convincing us that we’ve broken everything—that one wrong move has undone our lives beyond repair. It blurs our vision, distorts reality, and convinces us that the mess in front of us is permanent.
But often, what feels ruined is simply unfinished.
Hidden beneath the chaos—the cut-up carpet, the dust, the exhaustion—there is still original beauty. Still strength. Still purpose waiting to be revealed.
That day taught me something I’ve carried ever since:
Healing doesn’t require perfection.
It requires persistence.
And sometimes, God uses friendship as the clearest megaphone of truth.
Jon’s words cut through the dust because they reminded me of my own track record—of survival, resilience, and the quiet proof that I had already made it through every hard thing up to that point.
We all need a Jon.
Someone who answers when we call.
Someone who can see past our panic and speak truth into the unraveling moments.
Someone who reminds us that becoming is messy—and that doesn’t mean it’s wrong.
Declaration — Start the Sander. Finish What You Started.
Here’s what I know now, and what I declare:
I am not broken.
I am not ruined.
I am not behind.
I am in the middle of my refining.
The dust does not mean destruction—it means transformation is underway.
The mess does not mark the end—it marks the work.
So I will keep going.
I will finish what I started.
I will trust that what’s hidden beneath the surface is worth the process.
And when the weight feels too heavy, I will remember this:
A single voice—spoken in truth, love, and faith—can change everything.
Sometimes the bravest thing you can do is pick up the sander again.
And sometimes the greatest gift you can offer someone else is simply this reminder:
You’re not ruined.
You’re just not finished.
—
Beauty for Ashes is not the absence of pain; it is the refinement that takes place when you refuse to quit.
