Refined in the Fire: Trust, Betrayal, and Belonging to Christ
Not long ago, a dear friend confided in me that his spouse had admitted to an affair and was preparing to file for divorce. He was blindsided, left staggering under the weight of betrayal. As I listened to his pain, I felt his heartbreak as though it were my own.
The truth is, I have walked this road myself.
I have been married twice before, and my second marriage ended because of multiple affairs while I was deployed in Iraq in 2003 and again in 2005. I was deeply in love, and I know she loved me too, but fear, immaturity, and brokenness led her into choices that devastated us both. After my first deployment, I thought we had reconciled. We went to counseling, bought a house, rescued dogs, and I tried to build a safety net of community for her when I deployed again. But when I came home the second time, the house was empty.
At the time, I didn’t run to God. I ran to numbing. I cycled through anger, depression, and hiding. Eventually, I buried myself in my career. What I couldn’t see then was that God was preparing me, even in my pain, for something greater.
Over my 21 years in the Army, I found myself counseling and mentoring countless Soldiers who faced the same struggles. Some marriages survived, but many didn’t. Through it all, I discovered how God was shaping me through the fires I once thought would destroy me.
I often explain trust with a simple picture:
When you go to a restaurant, you immediately place trust in strangers. You trust the waitress to take your order, the chef to prepare it well, and the restaurant to follow health codes. If the food is excellent, you tell everyone about your experience.
But if halfway through your meal you find a fingernail in your potatoes or a hair in your burger, the trust is shattered. Even future restaurants will be met with suspicion. That’s what infidelity does to trust in a relationship, it contaminates something that was once good and leaves scars that affect future connections.
That’s why my wife and I live today in full transparency. We hold nothing back. Even when truth is hard to hear, we speak it because trust is the foundation we fiercely protect.
Walking with my friend reminded me again: the very fires that once burned me are the same fires God uses to shape me. What once felt like ruin has become part of my testimony.
Scripture tells us that God is near to the brokenhearted (Psalm 34:18) and that He uses trials to refine us like gold (1 Peter 1:6–7). He does not waste pain. Every valley becomes an opportunity for His glory when we surrender it to Him.
We are all sinners. But once we are saved, we belong to Jesus Christ, the Son of God. And because we belong to Christ, we belong to the Father Himself. No betrayal, no abandonment, no failure can take away the security of that belonging.
So when I sit with my friend in his heartbreak, I don’t sit as someone with quick answers. I sit as someone who knows the sting of betrayal and the steady hand of a Savior who restores. My story and his are not finished. They are being refined, shaped, and redeemed by a God who uses even our darkest nights to bring us, and those around us, closer to His light.
May we all remember: the fire doesn’t consume us, it refines us. And in Christ, even our deepest wounds can become testimonies that point others to the Father.
Calen
