The Fire That Forms You

We’re often taught that pressure and stress mean something is wrong. That if you’re overwhelmed, stretched, or carrying too much, you’ve missed something, made a mistake, taken on too much, stepped out of alignment. But what if that’s not true? What if the pressure you’re feeling isn’t a sign you’re off track, but sacred evidence that God is forming something in you?

I used to believe peace would come through performance. If I could get everything in order, lead well enough, serve long enough, stay in control and then things would settle. The pressure would ease. The chaos would quiet. But peace doesn’t come from control. And pressure doesn’t lift just because we work harder. If anything, the more I tried to hold it all together, the more I disconnected from the woman God was actually calling me to be.

We live in a world that tells us to chase balance and avoid stress. But Scripture doesn’t promise comfort without calling. Jesus didn’t avoid the wilderness. Abraham didn’t stay in the safety of what he knew. Noah didn’t build the ark without ridicule. In every story of transformation, pressure and preparation came before purpose. God often uses pressure to bring clarity. He uses discomfort to refine. He allows tension not to crush us but to call us deeper into who we really are.

Not all stress is created equal. There’s distress; the kind that clouds your thinking, drains your energy, and makes you feel frozen or reactive. But then there’s eustress; the kind that sharpens your focus, fuels your growth, and reminds you that pressure can also carry purpose. One kind of stress buries you. The other builds you. And the difference isn’t in the stress itself it’s in how we interpret it, how we respond, and how we allow it to either define us or develop us.

I’ve seen this again and again in the women I coach. Faith-filled, high-achieving women who lead boldly on the outside but carry quiet fatigue on the inside. Women who’ve reached the edge of the version of themselves that was built in survival and are being invited into a new rhythm that’s rooted in identity. It’s not a breakdown. It’s a breakthrough in motion.

Pressure has a way of bringing things to the surface. It exposes the old strategies we’ve outgrown, the systems we’ve built around striving, and the burdens we were never meant to carry. And it also reveals the quiet strength that’s been there all along, the God-given identity that was waiting underneath the performance.

So if you’re in a season that feels tight, uncomfortable, or heavy… don’t run. Don’t shame yourself. Don’t try to control your way out of it. Let the pressure speak. Let the fire purify. Let God show you what needs to be released not because you’re weak or broken, but because you’re being formed.

This isn’t punishment. It’s preparation. It’s the refining that comes before the release. You are not unraveling. You’re being rebuilt. Not in your old image, but in the one God has always seen.

So let the fire form you. Let the pressure stretch you. Let the stress invite you back to peace not the kind the world gives, but the kind that comes from alignment with God.

You are not being buried. You are being built.