Courage

It was a Saturday afternoon, and I was one man of a two-man engine crew. We were running a suicide engine to a high-hazard commercial fire. As soon as we rolled up, thick black and gray puffy smoke was pumping out of the building like a living thing. We forced the door, and the moment we stepped inside, we couldn’t even see our hands in front of our faces. I was crawling through that stifling, smoked-over darkness, feeling my way through the unknown, looking for that warm orange glow that tells you you’re getting close.

We took a wrong turn, then another. Pulled back. Regrouped. Pushed in again. Finally, we found the seat of the fire and darkened it down. When the smoke started to lift and that orange faded into steam, I remember this crazy mix of emotions — I had been scared out of my mind going in, but when it was over, I felt like a total badass.

That’s courage.

People think courage means being fearless, but that’s not it. Courage is being scared and doing it anyway. It’s not the absence of fear — it’s the decision that something else is more important than fear. Every first responder knows that feeling on the job. But where we really need courage most isn’t always in the burning building or at the crash scene — sometimes it’s at home, when the adrenaline wears off and the silence hits.

It takes courage to admit you’re not okay.

Courage to face the memories that haunt you.

Courage to ask for help when you’ve been trained to “handle it.”

Courage to tell the truth about addiction, about PTSD, about that heavy darkness that follows you off shift.

See, fear doesn’t just show up on calls. It creeps into your head. It whispers that you’re weak, that you’re broken, that you’ll never get back to who you used to be. Fear lies to you. Fear isolates. And fear is expensive — it’ll cost you peace, sleep, marriages, friendships, even your life if you let it. Fear bears rotten fruit: anger, pride, shame, anxiety, addiction. It eats away at you from the inside.

But fear and faith can’t live in the same room. One always drives the other out.

Real courage — the kind that heals — doesn’t come from muscle or pride or adrenaline. It comes from surrender. From knowing that you don’t have to be the one holding the line all the time. It comes from God.

God is the source of courage. Always has been. Joshua 1:9 says, “Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” That verse hits different when you’ve been in the dark — literally or spiritually. Because courage isn’t just about running into the unknown. It’s about trusting that even in the darkness, you’re not alone.

If fear is the voice of darkness, then courage is the echo of light. And light always wins.

The way to overcome fear is through faith, truth, and love. Through surrounding yourself with people who remind you who you are — not what the trauma says you are. Through prayer. Through honesty. Through choosing every day to believe that you are still worth saving. That’s what courage looks like. Power. Love. Clarity.

So yeah — courage is crawling through the smoke and darkness of a burning building. But it’s also crawling through the smoke and darkness inside yourself. It’s making wrong turns, regrouping, and pushing back in again until you find the fire and put it out.

That’s what healing looks like. That’s what faith looks like. That’s what courage really is.

Be safe out there.

-Tom

“For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and a sound mind.” -2Timothy 1:7

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