Faith Under Fire

God's peace can find us even in our most chaotic moments, as demonstrated through my near-death experience after a rocket attack in Iraq. Though severely wounded and certain of death, I experienced a supernatural calm that defies logical explanation.

• The moment in Iraq when I was certain I would die from a second incoming rocket
• The strange peace I felt in darkness as I accepted my fate
• The presence I sensed with me during those moments between life and death
• Being pulled back to reality through a familiar smell from childhood
• The biblical foundation for "peace that surpasses understanding" (Philippians 4:7)
• Why suffering is a normal response to an abnormal situation
• How God uses our suffering to reach others who wouldn't hear otherwise
• The importance of naming our specific struggles rather than generalizing suffering
• Building trust with God through understanding His character
• Finding purpose in pain that might be intended to reach someone else

Look at the moments of chaos in your own life and consider if they might be part of God's bigger plan. Stay in the fight, keep the faith, hold fast and remember you're not walking alone.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome and Gratitude
• 1:01 The Moment in Iraq
• 3:21 A Spiritual Encounter in Darkness
• 6:40 Peace That Surpasses Understanding
• 9:48 Facing Suffering with God's Presence
• 16:28 God's Purpose in the Pain

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:07

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. Welcome back to Combat Pastor Marine, to Ministry. I'm Tyler Fulton and before we dive in, I just want to say thank you. The support from all of you after episode one has been incredible your messages, your stories. Honestly, I can't put it into words what it's been to me. I'm humbled that you're here. I'm humbled that you're accepting of my story and that you're walking this journey with me.

Speaker 1: 1:01

Today I want to take you back to the moment in Iraq. Yes, we're talking about the explosion, the chaos, the pain, but more importantly, we're talking about what happened after. There's this strange thing that happens sometimes when everything goes still. Not a peaceful kind of still, it's the kind that comes after chaos. It's like the world holds its breath for a moment For your brain and your emotions to comprehend what's happening to your body and the world around you. And for me, that moment came on March 19th 2016 at Firebase Bell in Iraq. If you heard episode one, you know the attack, the rockets, pain, confusion. But today I want to focus on a brief moment. After the stillness, the kind that's not calm, but just suspended After the first blast, I woke up covered in dust, disoriented.

Speaker 1: 2:00

The bunker was chaos. It was injured Marines. The bunker was chaos, it was injured Marines, smoke blood and I knew something no one else did there were two pops, remember I said when I stepped out, I heard pop, pop. Well, the first one that had hit us, but I heard that second pop, so it was registering to me in my brain. The second one was coming and I thought this is it. We're done. We're not walking out of this. I saw the devastation from the first one. We're about to get blown to pieces in this dang desert.

Speaker 1: 2:34

But here's where things get strange, and I want to caveat this by saying that I am not a super spiritual person. I am a very Christian person. I follow Christ, I have immense love for God, but I am not into magic or anything like that. I would say that I'm described as a conservative Christian. So, with that said, and when you say things like I'm about to tell you. It often seems unreal and unimaginable and you possibly tune it out because of that. I hope that doesn't happen, because this is real. It's a real occurrence that happened to me. I believe it with all of my being and it's not like this thing happens every day. This is the most spiritual event that has ever happened to me, besides my surrender to Christ years later. This is a moment that God intervened on my behalf.

Speaker 1: 3:33

So, as that rocket hit, I crawl into the bunker and then I, you know, register in my head a second rocket's coming. We're done, I'm about to die. So I put my hands on my head. I was in the fetal position and I just tightened up. I tightened up every muscle in my body and I waited. I knew it was coming.

Speaker 1: 3:56

My whole body was tight, every muscle clenched, but then suddenly there was a calm. It was like when there's tension on a rope and then it suddenly lets go and I was suspended in this darkness, not like the scary kind, but the peaceful kind. It wasn't like I saw someone, but I felt a presence in that darkness with me. Have you ever been standing in a dark room and you know, somebody else is in there with you. Maybe we're playing hide and go seek or something, but the person's just out of view. You know someone's there, you know exactly where they are, but they're just out of view for you to register the full shape of them. It wasn't scary, it was comforting.

Speaker 1: 4:41

People often say your life flashes before your eyes in events like this, but I didn't experience that. Maybe you could call it that, but I don't. Instead, I was flooded with thoughts, thoughts about the situation, family, my mom, my sister, my friends. I thought about not memories with them or things that we've done, but I thought about how their lives are going to continue without me. And for a moment, I felt completely at peace with that. It was like I could finally let go, I don't need to be involved. And I remember thinking. I actually thought these words in my head while being blown up Well, you're a Marine in Iraq, didn't you figure this would happen?

Speaker 1: 5:32

And truthfully, I did. I imagined dying in combat many times before, Mostly from movies and video games. But the real thing, when I actually thought it was happening, it was different no chaos, no noise, just a strange quiet peace. But as I embraced that peace, as I began to accept and let go of all the things in my life that I would miss, and I was okay with it. Something shifted. It was like there was a voice in the darkness maybe inside me, I'm not sure and it said you're not finished yet. You're going to enjoy these things a little longer.

Speaker 1: 6:20

And then the strangest thing happened. I smelled something. While I'm in this darkness, with this figure who's calming me, my attention actually gets drawn to a faint scent, but it grabbed my attention fully. I couldn't figure out what it was. It's like when you're trying to remember a song, but it's just out of reach, so it's all you think about. Boom. Then it hit me. It's the smell of an overheating wood stove. And suddenly I was back in my childhood. I was back to a scene of my dad jumping up off the couch to adjust the stove, go over and adjust the air vents to cool it down. That smell filled the air and in that instant I was no longer in the dark. I wasn't in this suspended moment. I was alive again. I knew I wasn't going to die.

Speaker 1: 7:19

Along with that smell came a sound, this sharp constant. As I'm focusing on the smell, I begin to focus that I'm hearing this thing. It's a ringing, a constant ringing, like a bell just wouldn't stop. At first I couldn't really place what it was, but then it overtook everything and, just like that, the piece I had started to let go of was overtaken by a rush of urgency. I wanted that peace back. I knew sort of I was in this state of waking up, but I wanted to be back asleep.

Speaker 1: 7:53

I remember the memories, the urgency of me wanting to be in a place where I was okay with letting everything go and being taken care of. I was in a place of complete submission and it was the most peaceful thing I had ever experienced and I was losing it and wanted it back. I was overtaken by fear and the need to hang on to life. It was like I was reaching into that darkness but I was going back into the light life. It was like I was reaching into that darkness but I was going back into the light. It was then that reality crashed back.

Speaker 1: 8:28

I opened my eyes. Everything that felt like hours to me were just a few seconds. I coughed. I was choking on dust. My body was on fire from the pain. I noticed this one particular pain on my back. So I reached back and I tried to feel something, but I felt something I didn't expect. It was bare skin. I even did the motion to reach under my shirt, to reach back there, but there was no shirt. Turns out, my clothes had been blown off. I ran my fingers across my bare skin, on my upper back and then my middle finger. I remember it sinking into this jagged hole in my back and the pain of that. I brought my hand back over and it was covered in blood and this intense nausea hit me hard.

Speaker 1: 9:12

And then there was Cisco Calm, focused. Cisco was a tall, beautiful man from West Virginia. Country as country could be A guy who could smile in the worst of moments and, better yet, he could get anyone else to smile in those moments as well. He was working on tightening a tourniquet on my upper thigh. I barely managed to ask him, sort of coughed it out. They got me, didn't they? He nodded slowly yeah, buddy, they got you. And right then, without hesitation, he cinched that tourniquet tight. The pain hit me like a shockwave and I screamed. But here's the thing In the middle of that pain, in the middle of that chaos, I felt something.

Speaker 1: 9:55

I still can't explain the word that comes to mind when I think back to that moment, was peace? How does that happen? It's easy to question that peace when we're in a hard place. It's easy to say why me, why this? Questions flood in, don't they? I've asked those questions too, but I've learned through God's word that those questions don't have to take away the peace. And there are answers for us In the Bible. Philippians 4.7 explains it perfectly. It says Now let me break this down a bit.

Speaker 1: 10:38

First, notice that it says this isn't just any peace. It's not the kind of peace that you get from everything being calm or from life going the way you expect it. It's not a peace because you're not afflicted. It's a deeper peace, a peace that comes from knowing God is with you no matter what's happening around you. You, no matter what's happening around you.

Speaker 1: 11:05

Then it says this it says the peace that surpasses all understanding. In other words, it's not a peace that makes sense. It's not a peace that makes sense to the world at least. You can't explain it with logic. It doesn't make sense that someone could feel peace when everything around them is falling apart. But that's exactly what God promises that kind of peace that doesn't need the storm to stop in order to be felt. It goes beyond what we can understand.

Speaker 1: 11:31

And what does that peace do? Well, it says it guards your hearts and minds. This is important because when we're in pain, when we're struggling, our hearts and minds are all over the place. We start to doubt, get anxious, question everything. But God's peace acts like a guard. It protects your heart from being overwhelmed by fear and it keeps your mind steady when everything else is spinning. It helps you hold on to hope, even when hope feels distant.

Speaker 1: 12:02

Notice, it says that this piece is in Christ Jesus. That's the key. It's not just a general piece we can find on our own. You can't buy this piece. You can't stock your shelves and know that you're not going to run out of food and find this piece. You can't get there with a monetary amount. Your bank account will never show this peace. It's only in Jesus. It's knowing that in the middle of everything, when we're at our lowest, when we feel like we can't go on, jesus is right there holding us. He's our peace, he's the way.

Speaker 1: 12:39

So when you feel like the world is crashing down, when you're battling questions and doubts, know that God's peace is available to you. It doesn't always make sense, but it's real. It's a peace that anchors you when everything else feels like it's falling apart. And that's the peace I had. The peace that doesn't make sense. I shouldn't be calm, I shouldn't be happy when I'm in the fetal position, blown up, but that piece Jesus gave me. And no, he didn't make the storm disappear, but he held me through it. Maybe you're facing chaos right now. Could be anything a relationship struggle, health battle, finances. I could go on and on right. Maybe it's just the weight of life crashing down on you. God's peace isn't about making life easy. It's about giving you the strength in the middle of the storm to continue. It's a peace that doesn't make sense, but is real when you're in the middle of suffering, and this drives me crazy.

Speaker 1: 13:42

Sometimes people will just generalize suffering. There is different suffering. I suffer way differently than other people on this earth. There are tiers to suffering and some suffering. You do have to buck up, but then there's suffering in this world. That's inevitable. Do have to buck up, but then there's suffering in this world that's inevitable Hunger, health problems, finances, relationship struggles. We need to name these things and be open about them. We need to say this is what I'm suffering from, not I'm just suffering. We need to pray about these things specifically because suffering is normal. Suffering is a normal part of life. Suffering has come from the fall.

Speaker 1: 14:28

We don't know how to react correctly to suffering because before sin there was no suffering. When I got out of the Marines I was given the old PTSD gift bag. Yep, I got it. But what helped me was that one doc told me what you're going through is a normal reaction to an abnormal situation. That's pretty comforting, right? All the terrible ways we feel because of suffering is a normal response to an abnormal situation, and it's okay. You're not alone in that, and it's hard to see the peace in it when it's buried under the noise and pain. I know I've been there. But I can tell you this when you lean into God's presence, when you trust him, even in the hardest moments, his peace will guard your heart. It will be your shield. It won't make things easier, but it will give you the strength to endure.

Speaker 1: 15:24

So I don't like to receive advice that is so general that I don't know how to apply it to my life. So let me explain. Let me explain what I mean when I tell you something like lean in on God, trust God. Well, it's learning his character, it's building a relationship with him through understanding and vulnerability, through submission. It's how we build relationships with other people. We trust God just like we do anybody else. We learn about them, we rely on them and we build trust. But when we go against that person, when we go behind their backs, it doesn't just destroy their trust, it destroys ours. We're ashamed and we want to hide from it, and that's what we do. To God, I want to say I always feel free if I've said something that can feel like open-ended or generalized, or if you're simply not familiar with the topic. Comment, ask me to define my terms, explain myself, elaborate a little bit more. I'll do my best to comment back and answer anything that you've got for me. I understand that the audience could be very broad and I would like to reach Christians and non-Christians alike, because I've been both of those.

Speaker 1: 16:33

Here's my challenge to you today. Think about the times when God has been working in your life and maybe you felt his nudging, that still small voice telling you move or let it go. Move or let it go, or to trust. Maybe you've resisted it, ignored it or fought against it, maybe because it didn't fit your plan or your understanding, but this is the truth. God's work in your life is intentional. Nothing happens by accident. Everything you've been through, everything you're facing, is part of a greater plan. It's not random, it's not a mistake. I get it. It's hard to surrender to that. We want control, we want to call the shots. But the peace I've talked about, that peace that held me steady in Iraq, it comes when we stop resisting God's plan, when we stop fighting and begin to surrender. Maybe today's the day you stop running, you stop running from what God's been trying to do in your life. Maybe today's the day that you let go and trust him, even if you don't understand it all right now.

Speaker 1: 17:54

And here's the thing God reaches everyone. It's not always a rocket that hits you. Sometimes it's a rocket I can attest to that. But sometimes it's a rocket that hits someone else, someone who would have never talked about God unless it did. That's me. It took a rocket for me to change my mind. So if you think you're Southern, learn from me. But for me it wasn't just about the blast. Maybe the blast was for someone else, someone who needed to hear a message that they wouldn't have heard otherwise. Maybe that rocket wasn't actually for me, but for you.

Speaker 1: 18:42

God is working in ways we can't see, using moments of chaos to lead someone to him. I could be completing my purpose right now, not because of anything I've done, but because God used that moment to reach you. He leaves the 99 to find the one, your one and he knows exactly how to reach you in your unique way he has if you're hearing this right now. So I challenge you to look at your life differently. Look at those moments, those struggles, and ask yourself is this part of a bigger plan? Maybe what's happening right now is for someone else's breakthrough. Maybe God's using your story to reach someone else who wouldn't hear it any other way. This is the long game that God plays. He doesn't waste a thing and sometimes he's using you right where you are, even in the pain, the confusion and the struggles, to reach the one he's been waiting for. It's not always going to make sense, but trust that God is at work and even in the hardest moments, he's always reaching for the one who needs to hear. Maybe today that's you.

Speaker 1: 20:04

This is Combat Pastor, marines in Ministry. I'm Tyler Fulton. Stay in the fight, keep the faith, hold fast and remember you're not walking alone. I'll see you next time.