My Screams from the Fire
By Dr. Verlyn Fontaine Waterman
They told me the fire would purify me.
They said it would refine, elevate, and draw me closer to God.
But what they didn’t say—was that I would scream.
I didn’t whisper.
I didn’t weep.
I screamed.
Loud. Guttural. Silent. All at once.
Because before there is beauty in ashes, there is burning.
Before there is refinement, there is the rawness of being undone.
And before there is glory, there is agony.
I screamed… when God stripped me of everything familiar.
Not because I didn’t believe in His sovereignty,
but because what I held dear had become my identity.
He touched what I wouldn’t surrender—
and I wailed when He peeled it away.
I screamed… when betrayal became my daily bread.
When those I covered with love uncovered my weakness.
When I realized some thorns don’t come from strangers,
but from hands that once held yours in prayer.
I screamed… when silence was my only answer.
When I fasted, prayed, waited—
and heaven felt deaf.
When the only voice I heard was the echo of my own brokenness
bouncing off the walls of my private prison.
I screamed… when I could no longer recognize myself.
The reflection in the mirror looked nothing like
the version of me I fought so hard to protect.
Stripped of accolades, ministry, titles, and roles—
I met the me, that God was after all along.
But something sacred happened in my screams.
The fire did not put them out.
It caught them.
Held them.
Sanctified them.
And transformed my pain into prayer, my agony into anointing, and my screams into songs of freedom.
In the fire, my voice changed.
What once was a cry for relief became a decree of revelation.
I realized…
My screams were not signs of weakness—they were the sound of birth.
My groaning was not rebellion—it was the language of surrender.
My breaking wasn’t my end—it was the door to becoming.
So, if you’re in the fire and all you can do is scream,
Scream.
Let the flames carry your cry to heaven.
Because in the furnace, even your screams are sacred.
They rise as incense.
They summon angels.
They unlock the next dimension of who you are in God.
You will not be consumed.
You are being consecrated.
Let the fire burn.
Let the scream rise.
Because on the other side of that scream is the sound of your deliverance.
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@DrVerlynWaterman