“The most powerful weapon on earth is the human soul on fire.” Ferdinand Foch

When I think about survivors shaping the world through advocacy, this quote feels less like poetry and more like truth lived out in real time.

A survivor’s soul on fire is not fueled by anger alone…though anger has its place. It is fueled by truth. By clarity. By a refusal to let what tried to silence us have the final word. Survivors know what systems overlook, what policies ignore, and what harm looks like when it hides behind legality, normalization, or convenience. When survivors step into advocacy, they don’t speak in theory. They speak from the scars that healed into wisdom.

That is power.

Survivors don’t just demand change…we shape it. We bring lived experience into rooms where decisions are made without us. We reframe narratives that once blamed us. We expose injustice not because we studied it, but because we survived it. And when one survivor stands up, it ignites courage in others. Fire spreads that way.
What the world often misunderstands is this: survivor advocacy is not about being stuck in the past. It is about redeeming it. It is about refusing to let pain be wasted. It is about transforming suffering into something that protects, educates, and liberates others.

And here is the teaching I carry in my heart:
Pain will either imprison you or propel you, but purpose is what determines the direction.
Turning pain into purpose does not mean rushing healing or pretending wounds didn’t hurt. It means listening for what your story is trying to teach you. It means asking, “How can this serve someone else?” It means allowing God to take what was meant to destroy you and repurpose it for good…just as Scripture promises.

We are told that what the enemy meant for harm, God will use for our good. Not just despite it, but through it.

And joy? Joy is not denial. Joy is defiance. Joy is choosing to live fully, love deeply, and advocate boldly without bitterness chaining your future to your past. Joy is the evidence that healing has taken root.

When survivors lead with truth, with purpose, and with joy, the fire becomes unstoppable.
Nothing is wasted. Not the pain. Not the tears. Not the long nights. Not the survival.
A human soul on fire: refined, redeemed, and rooted in purpose…can change the world.

There is a quiet grief that lives in me right now now, not loud, not dramatic, but steady. It’s the kind of grief that doesn’t come from losing something I once had, but from never quite receiving the thing I’ve longed for in the first place. Ambiguous loss has a way of doing that. It leaves no funeral, no closure, no clear moment where you can say this is where it ended. It just lingers.

When I hear Jordan Davis’s “Next Thing You Know,” I feel the ache of a life that was supposed to unfold in soft milestones…love that grows roots, shared laughter, ordinary days that quietly turn into forever. That song carries the dream of being chosen, of being partnered, of being witnessed as life moves forward. And yet, what echoes louder in my lived experience is the chorus of Ella Langley’s “Choosing Texas”…the leaving, the independence, the self-reliance, the strength forged not by being held, but by having to hold myself.

That contrast has shaped my experience of dating and love. I have loved deeply. I have hoped earnestly. And still, I have not been met in the way my heart has quietly waited for…the way that says, I see you, I choose you, let me care for you the way you care for everyone else. Carrying the weight of the world, of advocacy, of survival, of motherhood, while not having a safe place to rest emotionally… that kind of loneliness settles into the bones.

There are moments when the absence feels louder than anything else. The absence of someone asking how I am and meaning it. The absence of being softened by love rather than sharpened by responsibility. The absence of being held…not because I am strong, but because I am human.

And still… I remain.

I live in acceptance of what is without surrendering the hope of what could be. My mission matters. Raising my daughter matters. The work I do, the lives I touch, the healing I help create – it all matters. I stay spiritually fit because I know joy doesn’t only come wrapped in romance. It comes in purpose. In faith. In moments of peace that arrive quietly and unexpectedly. In laughter with my child. In knowing that my life has meaning even in the waiting.

Hope, for me, is no longer naïve…it is resilient. It doesn’t demand immediate fulfillment. It simply whispers, Maybe someday. And until that day, I continue to choose life as it is now: grounded, honest, lonely at times, but still open. Still believing that my childhood dream of love…real love…can arrive later without invalidating the fullness of the life I’ve already built.

This is where I am: holding space for grief and gratitude at the same time. Accepting the quiet ache. Walking forward anyway with a smile. And trusting that joy, in whatever form it comes, is still allowed to find me. Until then…cheers.