10/28/2026
The Crucible of Pain
It’s been 4 months since my injury and I'm in the battle of my life. While there's a sense of "I know what to do,” this third round with cancer has presented a new challenge that has brought me to the end of myself: Pain.
Physical pain.
Not emotional trauma or PTSD but pain like I've never experienced in my life.
Pain that rips through my organs and lights my skin on fire.
Insatiable pain.
Aspirin is a joke.
Ibuprofen and Tylenol...
Have no effect.
But at 5pm everyday...
The pain starts small and crescendos to its tipping point where from behind closed doors, and through tears and sweat, my body wails in sorrow as I wait for the wave of this deep, twisting, unquenchable pain to pass over me.
For the past 3 weeks or so (right around the same time I started these new meds) my body has been experiencing the worst pain I've ever felt in my life.
I’ve cried out to God and asked him to take away the pain and when that didn’t happen, I asked him to take me home.
Multiple times.
Imagine hearing your stronger-than-average husband or father SOBBING in a closed room asking the Lord for such a mercy.
But God didn’t remove my pain and he didn’t take me home.
👉 He simply made me stronger.
He redeems me.
He flips the pain into promotion.
Here I am going thru the worst pain of my life in the most vulnerable time of my life, dealing with a very serious diagnosis that is not quickly resolving.
And yet...
The man that I've become over the last few weeks is a greater man than I was.
👉We often call God our redeemer because he redeems - or transforms - something terrible into something beautiful.
👉And the man I'm becoming through this experience of pain is better than the man I was before.
👉Pain has given me the eyes to see the beauty in my wife's smile and the value of having my children close.
The man I was before screamed "Why me" and the man I am today says "Use me.”
Use me, Lord.
God doesn’t just remove us from our troubles, he grows us thru them; he redeems the pain of yesterday into something beautiful today like a surprise matcha with my son or a stolen conversation with my daughter and all of a sudden I can see that the pain I'm feeling isnt just the cancer cells dying...
Its my old life dying.
The life where money, views, and status, kept me awake at night.
That life is over.
And it's painful.
But the new life that's breaking through could not be born of comfortable surroundings.
And it’s beautiful.
I had to experience an injury so disabling that it caused me to imagine leaving my wife and kids early - before they are ready to live without me. It caused me to see the man I'd become in my quest for fame and it showed me the better man I was capable of being.
Because to walk with Jesus is to walk in victory. And everyday we are granted new mercies.
For example, my recent blood tests were almost all normal levels. My hemoglobin is back to 15 and my anemia is gone.
Also, we got a pain specialist to manage the pain and my "pain waves" have all but stopped.
This substantial improvement has led to improvements in my optimism, energy levels, and attitude. All of which are essential for healing.
We are still raising money to cover expenses and you're encouraged to donate! Between all the therapies I'm doing and loss of our business income, we're trying to raise like $2K per month. Recurring donations of any amount are helpful.
The cost to stay alive in America today (even with insurance) is mind blowing.
But I choose victory.
I choose life.
At any cost.
And I’m willing to share the stories of my pain because my journey was never meant to be experienced alone.
Click the link in the comments to see the blog or donate. I’ll be uploading more videos again soon.
Thank you for sticking with me.
-Owen Hemsath
