Psalm 77:11
11 I will remember the deeds of the Lord;
yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago.
[Reflective]
Most of you probably won’t recognize anything in this image, so let me share. I’ve caught myself staring at it for hours, watching decades of memories stir beneath the surface like ripples on the water.
This is Bayou DeSiard, flowing quietly through the heart of the University of Louisiana at Monroe. I spent six years here, approximately thirty years ago. And in just a few months, my son will walk these same grounds, beginning his own journey. It’s a full-circle moment—one that carries more weight than I expected.
At the beginning of the year, God gave me one word: remembrance. I didn’t welcome it easily. I’m a visionary by nature—always looking ahead, dreaming forward. So I asked, “Are You sure, God?” [Insert that half-smile of knowing better by now.] But God wasn’t just giving me a theme. He was giving me an assignment.
I didn’t want to remember—not the hard parts, anyway. Sure, there were beautiful moments, clear signs of God’s provision and purpose. But buried deep in those years were also wounds I tried to leave behind. Pain that still stings if I let my heart go there. What I didn’t realize is that God wasn’t bringing me back to harm me—He was showing me how far we’ve come together.
When I look at this photo, my eyes are drawn to the reflection of the trees beneath the surface. That reflection runs deep—and for me, it’s more than a visual. It represents the trials, heartaches, and silent battles that shaped me. Beneath the surface of my life, where few people could see, I was walking through a season of intense pain. A time when my spiritual character—my very heart and intentions—were questioned, doubted, and judged.
It wasn’t just criticism. It was a trial of the soul. There’s something uniquely painful about having your faith—your relationship with God—put on trial. About being misunderstood, misrepresented, and falsely judged in areas that matter most to who you are. That pain doesn’t just touch the mind—it pierces the heart. And for a while, I wasn’t sure if I’d come through it without being completely burned up.
But here’s what I see now: just like those cypress trees rising tall from the water, I grew. Not in spite of the pain, but because of it. The roots of my growth reached deep into the soil of those trials. And what looked like destruction was actually construction—God was building something in me that couldn’t be shaken by other people’s opinions.
The ripples in the water remind me that God never leaves us stagnant. He stirs the waters of our hearts, often through the discomfort of pain or disruption. But He does it so we don’t settle in the wrong place. Stagnant water breeds decay—but movement brings life, healing, change.
And then there’s the light. In this picture, you can see the sun reflecting on the surface, gently breaking through. That light is a reflection of God’s presence—steady, revealing, redeeming. It didn’t erase the past, but it redefined it. His light helped me see clearly what I couldn’t understand in the moment: that the trial didn’t ruin me—it refined me.
For the last year and a half, I’ve had the sacred opportunity to walk with others through their own storms in pastoral counseling. And I don’t approach that role from a place of perfection, but from a place of compassion. Because I’ve been in the deep. I know what it’s like to have your heart questioned and your motives judged—and I also know the healing that only God’s truth can bring.
So now, when I remember, I don’t just see pain. I see purpose. I see that the roots beneath the water—the things no one else saw—were the very foundations of the man standing here today. I see how God stirred the waters so I wouldn’t settle into bitterness. I see how His light broke through and led me out.
And I pray that He continues to use every part of my story—not to make much of me, but to make much of Him. If this picture says anything, it’s that the same waters that tried to pull me under are now the place where I stand tall—rooted, refined, and still growing.
As I watch my son prepare to step onto this campus, I carry a quiet prayer in my heart—that the lessons I’ve learned will somehow guide him as he chases his own dreams. Just as I have had to stand on God as my firm foundation through every storm, I pray he learns to do the same, trusting that God will lead him, strengthen him, and grow him—even through the waters.
Thankful,
Christian Armetta
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My Deliverer 