Intro — The Sentence That Shook My Theology
Some sentences land softly.
Others feel like a blow to the chest.
This one did not arrive gently.
“Judas was perfect for what he was chosen to do.”
When I first heard it, the words sounded cruel—almost offensive. I wasn’t ready for them. I had endured loss, humiliation, and a betrayal so sharp it split grief wide open. I was still standing in the wreckage of love I thought was safe.
And yet, months after my fiancé had passed—months after standing at his funeral only to discover the devastating truth that he had been unfaithful—I stumbled across a sermon that cracked something open inside me.
The televangelist said:
“Judas was perfect for what he was chosen to do. That’s the way you have to look at the bad things that happen in your life. They were perfect at what they were chosen to do—to push you into your destiny.”
I didn’t accept it all at once.
But something in my spirit shifted.
Because sometimes healing doesn’t begin with comfort.
Sometimes it begins with a truth that reframes everything.
This excerpt from Beauty for Ashes: Refined in the Fire comes from that place—where betrayal stopped being the final word and became the doorway to liberation.
Where the Wedding Became a Funeral
An excerpt from newly released 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.
I was at a conference in Miami
when everything stopped—my manager came to get me in the middle of the conference.
“Your fiancé has been in an accident.
He didn’t make it.”
My wedding dress was bought.
The cake was ordered.
August had a date circled around promise.
There was no prepare-for-this moment. No slow unfolding. Just shock, followed by the frantic rush to board the next available flight to the island that was supposed to hold our beginning.
Instead, it became the place where my life fractured.
I returned not only to face the death of the man I loved—but to stand in a reality I never saw coming. As I waited for the funeral, I met a woman I did not recognize. She, too, had come to pay her respects. Not as a friend. Not as family.
As his girlfriend.
So there I was—grieving the loss of my fiancé while simultaneously unraveling the truth of a betrayal I never imagined. Mourning a future that had died, while discovering that the life I believed I had been living was not the one I thought it was.
There was no space to process.
No time to catch my breath.
Only the unbearable weight of death, deception, and unanswered questions—held together by the thin thread of survival.
That was the moment my faith was shaken to its core.
And then, months later, I came across a sermon that began to crack open the shell around my healing. The televangelist said: “Judus was perfect for what he was chosen to do; that’s the way you have to look at the bad things that happen in your life.” They were perfect at what they were chosen to do. Push me into my destiny, shape my personality, and move me from faith to faith. It brought me out of my comfort zone and made me have to trust God; it made me have to become self-reliant. I’m so glad you were in my life. You were chosen to hurt me. When you betrayed me, you liberated me. Thank you for being who you are in my life. Stop being angry, stop being mad, stop being upset, and start thanking God for everything that you went through—the good, the bad, and the ugly. I learned something I couldn’t have been exposed to any other way. I’ve learned that I had more power than I thought I had; I thought I’d lose my mind going through that. “I’m stronger than I thought I was; I’m tougher than I thought I was.
“Judas was perfect for what he was chosen to do.”
It sounded harsh. Cold, even. But over time, through heartbreak and healing, I began to see the truth inside it.
Some people are divinely positioned not to love you, but to break you open. To awaken you. To drive you out of complacency and into purpose.
The betrayal didn’t destroy me—it delivered me.
What felt like the cruelest injustice was, in hindsight, a strange kind of mercy.
You see, some people are assigned to your pain—not your future.
They are the fire that forges you.
The storm that shakes you out of the shallow places and into the deep.
I used to be angry. Furious, even.
But now? I’m grateful. Not because of what happened—but because of what it made me become.
You were chosen to hurt me.
And in doing so, you set me free.
When you betrayed me, you unknowingly handed me the keys to my own liberation.
You taught me that I could stand alone. That I could cry until I couldn’t breathe… and still find breath again.
You didn’t just break me—you built me.
Because when everything fell apart, I discovered something unshakable:
My resilience. My faith. My becoming.
So no—I’m not angry anymore.
I’m not bitter. I’m not even sad.
I thank God for it all.
The beauty, the betrayal, the brokenness.
Because I learned something I never could have learned in safety.
I learned I was stronger than I ever believed.
Wiser than I ever gave myself credit for.
And more powerful than the pain that tried to bury me.
I didn’t lose my mind. I found my strength.
I didn’t fall apart. I was refined in the fire.
Reflection — Assigned to the Pain, Not the Promise
There is a difference between excusing betrayal and understanding its role.
This truth does not minimize harm.
It does not excuse abuse.
It does not sanctify injustice.
It does something far more powerful.
It removes the betrayer from the center of the story.
Some people are divinely positioned not to walk you into the future—but to move you out of the version of yourself that would have stayed too small.
Judas did not derail Jesus’s calling.
He accelerated it.
And when we finally see that, betrayal loses its final authority.
The devastation didn’t mean I was foolish to love.
It didn’t mean I misheard God.
It didn’t mean I lost my discernment.
It meant I was being pressured into strength I had never needed before.
Pain exposed power I didn’t know I had.
Loss revealed resilience that had been dormant.
And abandonment taught me how to stand—alone if necessary—without collapsing.
What once felt like cruelty became clarity.
What felt like injustice became instruction.
Declaration — From Betrayal to Becoming
I declare this now—not with bitterness, but with strength:
What tried to break me did not own me.
What betrayed me did not define me.
What hurt me did not have permission to stay in control.
I do not deny the pain.
I redeem it.
I thank God for every season that demanded more of me than I thought I had.
For every breaking that gave way to becoming.
For every betrayal that loosened my grip on illusion and deepened my grip on truth.
I did not lose my mind.
I found my strength.
I did not fall apart.
I was refined in the fire.
And from the ashes—
I rose.
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.
Available now on Amazon – https://amzn.to/48z0423
