Prepared by providence.

Episode 1 – Prepared by Providence (Part 1)
In this opening episode of Combat Pastor: Marines to Ministry, Tyler Fulton shares the story of the day a rocket strike in Iraq shattered his world and how that moment became a doorway to God’s unexpected provision. From battlefield trauma to raising children with special needs, Tyler reflects on how grace can rise from the wreckage, and how the worst day of your life may be the start of God’s bigger plan. If you’ve ever felt sidelined, broken, or forgotten, this episode will remind you: God’s not finished with your story.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Welcome back. I'm Tyler Fulton. This is Combat Pastor, Marina Ministry. And I've been blown up, broken down, and built back by the grace of God. Now I serve as a husband, a father, and a shepherd. I share stories of faith and family, marriage and mission. And I just want you to know that you're not in this alone. We're fighting together, so let's move out. Thank you for spending your time with me today. Thank you for enlisting in Combat Pastor. I know you could be doing anything else with your time right now, so the fact that you're here means a lot to me. Here's what I want to do. I want to start by telling you about the worst day of my life and how God used it to change everything for me. It was 2016. I was a Marine, boots on the ground in Iraq. I was sitting around morning breakfast, breakfast time. I just finished this garbage halal MRE. Halal MREs are the MREs that they gave to the Iraqis and the Iraqis said, yeah, no, we're not eating that. So they gave them to the Marines and we were eating those instead of good old fashioned MREs. So if you thought MREs couldn't get worse, they can. I'm eating this cold chickpea soup straight from the pouch. I had no clue that within minutes, my entire life would be flipped upside down. We hit with a Katyusha rocket. It hit our position. And a Katyusha rocket isn't like an RPG. It's a rocket fired from vehicles, like a 132 millimeter or something like that. And man, it was a direct hit. I'll never forget the sound. Right before it. It was two quick pops. Pop.

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Pop.

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Really far in the distance. It was a weird sound, almost like a... It was almost harmless. It was like when your ears perk up a little bit when you hear your kid drop something in another room and you're like, eh, is that a problem or not? I barely got the words out. I remember turning to my buddy and I said, that was weird. The D in weird is when the blast came. Boom, I remember being picked up like a rag doll and slammed back down into the dirt. My first thought was that one of my hooligan buddies threw a rock and hit me in the head. It seemed like a reasonable thought at the time because we were always messing around with each other and we were a pretty rough group. I thought one just took it a little bit too far and hit me with a rock. I remember thinking, I'm about to destroy somebody. Then, when I tried to stand up, my mind and body were not on the same page. I was actually most likely out for a few moments, and I came to, I was crawling, I was already crawling, I didn't even think about it. There was dust everywhere, red Iraqi dust filling the air, it was choking everything. The sky had this weird, eerie yellow glow, like it does after a sandstorm. The bunker became chaos. Guys were shouting, radios blaring. I could barely hear anything over the ringing in my ears. Almost sounded like just suction and ringing. As I'm crawling, I look down and I saw this piece of metal sticking out of my hand. And that's when I really put it together. I thought, no way, this is not happening. But it was. I thought, I've been hit. There was blood and there was confusion. I remember grabbing the piece of metal out of my hand and pulling it out real quick. And my first thought was like, ew. And somewhere deep inside me, I felt something just crack open. Up until that point, I thought I had life pretty much figured out. I thought toughness was enough. I thought grit could solve everything. I had no idea that toughness could only take us so far. And that grit wears down. And muscles fail. Pride cracks. I had never been in that vulnerable of a state before. That confused. That hurt. I had never felt pain like I did that day. What I really needed was grace. But I didn't know that yet. All I knew in that moment was pain. Confusion. Fear. And honestly, anger. I was angry. And you know what's crazy? You know what I thought? I thought, why me, God? And I didn't even have faith yet. I wasn't praying. But somewhere inside, that question still came out. Why me, God? I didn't even know who I was talking to. Why? Why was I bringing up God? I don't know. Fast forward to now. I have five kids. Four of them have special needs. Two of my sons have this rare disease called glycogen storage disease, GSD, and we'll go into that in another episode. One of my twins battles severe asthma, and the other one has cerebral palsy. So our life isn't easy. You know, not even close. It's hospital visits, blood sugar checks at 2 a.m., constantly, constantly vigilance, constant prayers, and it's very hard to relax. It's fighting battles I never thought I'd have the strength to fight. And some nights, when I'm holding my son's hand while we wait for his numbers to stabilize, I remember laying in that Iraqi dirt, and I realize God had already started writing this story. That rocket, that injury, the thing that I thought was the worst curse that God could ever allow, It gave my family now medical coverage that we desperately needed. It gave us a way to fight for our kids lives without going bankrupt, which happens to families out there. It gave me a future and a mission. I didn't see it back then. I couldn't have. But God was working the whole time. He was setting up provision That I didn't even know I need yet. He was setting up this life. And preparing. While I was complaining. He was giving me a story to tell. And he was giving me a heart. I could finally understand grace. I had nothing left to bring. Except my brokenness. So if you're in a hard place right now. We all get there. Maybe you're feeling like you've been sidelined or wounded or forgotten. I want you to hear me. God is not done with you. He's not punishing you. He's preparing you. We just don't know it yet. Maybe what feels like the end of your story, you're coming to the end, is actually just the beginning. It's the beginning of the next chapter. The Bible says in Philippians 4.19, Notice this has all of your needs, not some of them. Not the ones that you can handle yourself. All of them. Even the ones that you don't know you'll have yet. Yeah, and even those ones that you're too afraid to say out loud. The needs that... You're wishing for in the back of your head. But you're not verbalizing. I don't know what you're carrying today. I don't know what you've lost. Or what you're praying is going to change in your life. But I do know this. That God sees it. Every piece of it. He's already ahead of you. He's preparing a way. You just don't see it yet. If you told me back then, laying in the dirt, pulling metal out of my hand, that God was blessing me, I would have laughed in your face. And the guy I was in, I would have probably swung at you. But here I am. I'm telling you it's true. Not because I figured it out. And not because life got easy. But because God showed up. Even when I didn't know to look for him. He came to me. He pulled me out of my brokenness. The situation I got myself into. He intervened on my behalf. And he's showing up for you too. Maybe not in the way you expect. I certainly didn't expect a rocket to change my life. And maybe it's not as fast as you want. But he's working. Right now. While you hear this. in ways you won't even realize until you're standing a few miles further down the road. Today, I'm thankful for that rocket. That rocket was the best thing that ever happened to me. Not because of the pain and the brokenness in the time and the anger, but because of what God grew in the wreckage. God used that rocket to build faith. He used the rocket to build gratitude in my life and to give me purpose. And now I'm thankful for the nights I still have to get up at 2am because it means my sons are alive. I have the strength to take care of them. And I'm thankful for the bills. Yeah, because they mean that we have access to doctors who know how to help. I'm not in it alone. I don't have to figure it all out. I'm thankful for my weakness. Because it taught me to lean on God's strength. And once you tap into God's strength, you feel invincible. Real invincible. Not like the prideful, arrogant, invincible that I felt when I was a Marine that got shut down really quick. Next time we'll keep going. I'm going to talk more about what it actually looked like to trust God when nothing made sense. And it wasn't pretty, but man, was it real. Thank you for spending your time with me today. This is Combat Pastor. I'm Tyler Fulton. Stay in the fight, keep the faith, and hold fast. Remember, you're not walking alone. I'll see you next time.