Become the Fire: Push Past Fear and Find Your Purpose

Sarah Pedrozo reviews a journal that guides the reader in the Ignatian tradition to identify what may be keeping her from being who God created her to be. 

Become the Fire: Push Past Fear and Find Your Purpose

By Joelle Maryn

Become the Fire: Push Past Fear and Find Your Purpose is the second book by actress and author, Joelle Maryn. In it, Maryn spends a little time explaining the course of her own life, detailing how she fell away from her Catholic faith, but later returned her life to God after a profound conversion experience. Writing that “Our stories become God’s glories!" Joelle now spends her days helping others reclaim their lives and God-given purpose. 

A Story and a Workbook 

Become the Fire works more like a journal than a traditional book. Overall, the book is designed to lead the reader through an experience similar to the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius of Loyola. It is divided into three separate parts, and each part focuses on a different element. In Part One, the author shares her own story. She relates how a severe trauma that happened in her childhood, a fire in their home that took the life of her sister, continued to affect each of her family members for decades. In her own case, the pain caused by the fire ultimately led her away from God. Although she developed what appeared to be a successful career in Hollywood, as well as a profitable cosmetics company, she carried the trauma of her youth with her constantly.  But one day, Maryn discovered the truth about her outwardly successful life.   

She writes,

Suddenly, my entire life flashed before my eyes and the state of my soul was revealed to me. In shock, I fell to the ground as I saw all of my sins in full light and the ripple effect of my actions.  Most importantly, I understood that I hadn’t loved others well and wasn’t being who God created me to be.

God not only showed Joelle how she was failing to love in her own life, but He also granted her the insight to see how her actions had spread out to others. Not only did this revelation give her the determination to change, but it also turned out to be the path to her healing.   

Joelle realized her suffering could be used for good. She notes,

We can’t fear the fire. ... We must become the fire.  The fire of love. The fire of truth. The fire of hope. The fire of change. We must find the fire within.

But healing from deep wounds and a life of trauma takes time. It’s a process of reflection and prayer, and especially of discernment, in learning to see what God wants to show us, while at the same time coming to understand what is not from God and should be rejected.  

A Roadmap to Healing and Wholeness 

Part One of the book shares the author’s own journey of re-version and healing. It explains how Joelle “found her fire,” the reason to get out of bed each morning, and invites the reader to do the same. Parts Two and Three offer a roadmap to the reader to join Joelle on her path to becoming who God wants us to be. Part Two is about “walking through the fire” with God, allowing Him to pick up and restore all the shattered pieces of our lives, and Part Three deals with “becoming the fire,” being empowered by God to bring good to the world and be a co-operator of His grace to others.  

Parts Two and Three are filled with thought-provoking questions to help the reader really discern the will of God for her life. Additionally, quotes from the saints and from Scripture are scattered throughout the book, emphasizing the questions in each chapter. In these two parts, Joelle shares insights that particularly resonated with her in her journey of healing. For example, she gives this advice:

Forgive everyone who has ever hurt you, especially those associated with the pain that is distracting you from your calling. Forgiveness doesn’t mean what they did was okay — it's just transferring the debt to God so that He can deal with it for you. It releases you from getting in circles, stuck in the pain and not getting anywhere.

She also draws from Catholic tradition by saying,

You can also offer your suffering up to the Lord for the conversion of sinners and the salvation of souls, so that our suffering becomes redemptive and doesn’t go to waste.  

The book ends with an Appendix that contains Saint Ignatius’ Prayer to Know God’s Will, a page to list all of the blessings received from God, another page to create a List of Inspirations, and a final page to journal anything else the reader feels the Holy Spirit wants her to know about how God is acting in her life, and what direction and steps she should take.  

Become the Fire: Push Past Fear and Find Your Purpose is not a long book, only 150 pages, and many of those pages are open spaces for journaling. It’s also not a difficult read, as Joelle has written as though she’s talking to the reader over a cup of coffee. But it does have the potential to be a powerful book, if the reader enters into it with the same attention and intention she might give to a book of spiritual exercises. I believe it makes an especially good read and spiritual exercise during the Easter season, when we are seeking to live the new life offered through Christ’s Resurrection. 

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Copyright 2025 Sarah Pedrozo
Images: Canva
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