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How do we cultivate resilience in the face of adversity?
LESSONS OF THE FORGE: FOR OUR GRANDCHILDREN
I hope someday
you can watch Paw work the fire—
see him take cold, hard metal
and make it glow
like captured sunlight.
The hammer falls,
the sparks fly up,
and something new is born from heat.
This is what we want you to know:
you are both the metal and the smith.
Life is baptism by fire.
Misfortune, failure, heartbreak
they’ll heat you
until you think you’ll melt.
The hammer blows will come:
loss that strips you bare
and leaves you kneeling
in the ashes of your dreams;
moments when you feel too soft
to hold your shape.
But here’s the lesson of the forge:
only in its fire
do you become who you're meant to be.
Every strike that tries to break you
makes you stronger,
shaping you into something
beyond your imagination.
Watch how Paw works
patient with the process,
trusting the transformation,
knowing that what emerges
from flame and pressure and time
is always more beautiful
than what went in.
When the heat comes,
you will not be broken.
Walk through.
Not around.
There is power waiting
on the other side of pain.
Resilience is not a birthright.
It is forged.
And you, sweethearts—
you are the blacksmiths.