The Forge of Grace

The world does not whisper,
it bellows in the cries of children,
the brush of small hands,
the quiet strength of a wife’s embrace.
In their touch, I find God’s Spirit,
not distant or aloof,
but here, in the earthbound grit of living,
in the sharp edges of days that cut,
and the balm of moments that heal.

Pain is no tyrant.
It shapes us, strikes us
like iron on the anvil of time.
The fire consumes but does not destroy;
it tempers, it fortifies.
Through each trial, I am made again,
not lessened but refined,
bearing the weight of loss as a gift
and the scars as marks of grace.

Virtue is not born in us,
but learned, earned—
through acts of courage in the small,
through honour in the unseen,
through a will that stands firm
when the tide would pull us astray.
A man must build his chest,
for it does not grow unbidden.
Virtue is a craft, a calling,
a discipline as sharp as a sword
and as rooted as oak in the soil.

God is not far from this.
He is in the frost on the morning grass,
the warmth of the hearth,
the aching beauty of the stars.
He is the breath within the wind
that bends trees but does not break them,
the still, small voice that calls us to be more
than we are,
and the strength to answer that call.

I see it in my children’s laughter,
in their unspoken faith
that the world is good,
in their trust that I can be good, too.
I see it in my wife’s eyes,
where love does not waver
even when I fail.
They are the mirrors
that show me what I am,
and what I can be.

For all we lose, we gain—
not in kind, but in depth.
The forest stripped in winter
is no less a forest.
It waits, it endures,
and in time, it becomes
again, fuller, greener, more alive.
So too do we,
if we hold to the fire,
if we do not yield to despair.

The beauty of this world
is not in its ease
but in its endurance.
It is in the waves that crash
and pull the shore to its shape,
in the mountain worn by wind
and still standing.
It is in the hawk’s flight,
the river’s course,
the dawn that rises
after every dark night.

And so, we rise.
Shaped by the hardship,
held by the grace,
we become more than we were,
not by escaping the pain,
but by meeting it,
embracing it,
and letting it make us whole.

Virtue, grace, God,
and the love of those who shape us—
these are the things that last,
the truths that endure,
the fire that forges us,
not as ashes,
but as steel.

S. Tominaga AKA CSW
Nov 20, 2024
https://x.com/CsTominaga/status/1859259122803187887?t=NWNJUC-8mmTAPiGAMeQs0A&s=19

https://t.me/S_Tominaga/2111