Trial by Fire: When Nothing Seems to Be Working Out the Way You Hoped

Love Is Scorching Your Fields — and That’s the Gift

By Heather Garner - Ciao Bella Leadership

Let’s get honest. You’re not being punished. You’re not unlucky. You’re not cursed. You’re in the fire — and that means something sacred is happening.

When everything starts falling apart — your job, your relationships, your plans, your identity — when it feels like the very ground beneath you has given way, take a breath. You’re not being destroyed. You’re being reborn.

This is Love. Yes, Love — not the soft, fluffy, Hallmark kind. I’m talking about the raw, cosmic, divine force of Love — the one and only power of this universe. And guess what? God is that Love.

You don’t need to separate them anymore. Love is God, and God is Love. Same force. Same fire. And it’s moving through your life right now, not to ruin you, but to realign you.

Just like a wildfire clears the field so new life can grow, this sacred fire is burning away the false. It’s burning away what’s out of alignment with your soul. Not because you're broken — but because you're ready. Ready for more, ready for truth, ready for the life your spirit came here to live.

No, you won’t see literal flames. But you’ll feel it. That heat? That pressure? That chaos? It’s energetic. It’s spiritual. It’s the divine doing what your ego would never allow: cleaning house.

This fire doesn’t care about your comfort zone. It doesn’t care about your 10-year plan. It cares about your alignment.

Because left to your own devices? You probably wouldn’t move. You’d stay in that safe, stale, soul-numbing cycle. But fire? Fire doesn’t let you stay stuck. It forces action you never would’ve taken on your own.

And yes, it’s painful. Love doesn’t always feel like a warm hug. Sometimes it shows up as tough love — the kind that rips the rug out because you refused to move. The kind that prunes the branches that no longer bear fruit — even though you swore you needed them. But pruning is sacred. It’s what makes room for the real growth to come.

I know. I’ve stood in the ashes, too. I’ve lost everything — relationships, career, identity, the structures that once made me feel safe. I tried to fix it, to claw my way back, to understand what I “did wrong.” But it wasn’t punishment. It was Love in disguise.

So I let it…

Well — kind of. I fought it just like anyone would. That struggle? It serves a purpose. Just like the butterfly wrestles in its cocoon before spreading its wings, your body will resist. It’s wired for safety, for survival, for sameness. That fight is natural. Don’t beat yourself up for it. It’s part of the transformation. Your body knows what it’s doing — it’s just catching up to your spirit’s agenda.

And on the other side of the rubble?

Peace. Purpose. Clarity.

But listen — these don’t arrive overnight like some fairytale ending. They unfold little by little. A complete rebirth happens over time — sometimes years. And here’s how you know it’s working: when your mind finally starts to comprehend what’s happening. When things click. When the grief starts to turn into wisdom, and the confusion gives way to insight. That’s the sign.

You're exiting the struggle. You're no longer resisting. You’re about to take flight — like a butterfly, wings drying in the sun.

This is the real alchemy of fire: transformation through Love. It's the natural cycle built into every living thing — birth, growth, death, rebirth. It’s why flowers bloom and fade. Why babies are born. Why inventions come to life and ideas dissolve. All of it is Love, constantly reshaping itself to match the soul's evolution.

And when you fight the process? When you dig your heels in, stay in that job you hate, that relationship that numbs you, that identity that drains you? Love will intervene. Just like a gardener pulls out a plant that’s overrunning the rest of the crop, Love will replant you when you've outgrown your container — even if your ego clings to the old soil. And if you’ve gotten too big-headed or misaligned? Too rooted in illusion? You will be pulled. Because what doesn’t serve the greater garden — the whole — eventually gets pruned, relocated, or replaced.

Your higher self will make soul contracts behind the scenes — with your boss, your partner, your body, your life — to force you to move. Because what’s good for you is good for the whole. Always.

Even your frustration — the irritation, the aching misalignment — that’s Love speaking, too. It's divine discontent. It builds pressure so you finally shift. You either evolve where you are or get moved somewhere new.

Because energy must evolve. That’s nature. That’s the law. Humans forgot that we are nature — and somehow thought we were exempt. That we could control the outcome.

Cute, right?

But we’re not here to control. We’re here to experience. To align. To allow Love — the God-force — to move through us like breath, like light, like fire.

You may not see God, but you feel Love. That invisible, undeniable force that births galaxies and ends toxic patterns. The force that comforts and confronts. That expands and dismantles. That heals and hurts — because it heals.

So when everything’s on fire, stop trying to put it out. Let it burn what no longer serves you. Let it strip away what’s not meant to last. Trust that the ashes are sacred, and what rises from them will be real.

Because you’ll look back one day and say, “Why didn’t I do that sooner?”

And Love will smile.