From Woolworths Runaway Bay to Purpose and Faith

As I sit here with a coffee strong enough to wake up my ancestors, I can feel the quiet weight of this moment pressing in before the day has even properly begun.

There is something honest about early mornings on the Gold Coast.

Before the traffic.

Before the noise.

Before the responsibilities of the day fully announce themselves.

It is in these moments that everything becomes clearer, not because life is simple, but because there is nowhere left to hide from what is actually going on inside of you.

And this morning, if I am being completely honest, there is a low hum of anxiety sitting in my chest.

Not panic.

Not chaos.

But that steady, familiar tension that comes when life begins to shift in ways you cannot fully control.

I am stepping into a new season.

Working at Woolworths Runaway Bay has been a grounding place for me. It has been structure. It has been consistency. It has been a place where I have shown up day after day, learning what it means to be present, to work, to serve, and to carry responsibility in a real and practical way here on the Gold Coast in Queensland.

But now there is movement.

There is transition.

There is something unfolding beyond what I have known.

And with that comes uncertainty.

As I think about my day, my week, and everything ahead of me here on the Gold Coast, I can feel how full life is becoming.

Health appointments at Gold Coast University Hospital.

Shifts at Woolworths Runaway Bay.

Study commitments.

Assessments.

Responsibilities at home.

Relationships.

Expectations.

All of it stacking together.

And yet, in the middle of what could easily become overwhelming, I am beginning to notice something different within myself.

A pattern that was not always there.

A steadiness that I did not always have.

Because there was a time in my life where pressure would break me.

Where responsibility would overwhelm me.

Where anxiety would consume my thinking to the point where I could not see clearly.

But something has shifted.

Not because life got easier.

But because something deeper has been anchored.

The Word of the Lord is my strength.

Not as a phrase.

Not as something to write for effect.

But as a reality that has held me together when everything else felt like it was falling apart.

There have been moments in my life where I have stood on the edge of things that should have destroyed me.

Moments where my body was failing.

Moments where my mind was overwhelmed.

Moments where I questioned everything about who I was and why I was even here.

And yet I am still here.

Living on the Gold Coast, Australia.

Working.

Writing.

Building something that I cannot fully explain yet.

And when I look back across my life, across my family, across my bloodline, I can begin to see that there has always been something carrying me.

Something sustaining me.

Something that was present even when I was not aware of it.

Because none of us exist in isolation.

We are shaped by where we come from.

By our families.

By our bloodline.

By the environments we were raised in.

By the wounds that were handed down.

By the strength that was forged before we even understood it.

My life is not separate from my bloodline.

It is connected to it.

The pain.

The resilience.

The survival.

The patterns that I have had to face.

The patterns that I have had to break.

All of it has shaped the way I experience the world.

And for a long time, I did not fully understand that.

I thought my struggles were only mine.

I thought my battles existed in isolation.

But as I have grown, as I have reflected, as I have allowed myself to sit with the reality of my life, I have come to understand that there is a deeper story being written.

A story that does not just belong to me, but one that I am responsible for continuing.

And hopefully, transforming.

That transformation is not something that happens overnight.

It is something that is built in the quiet.

In the decisions no one sees.

In the moments where you choose to face yourself instead of running.

In the moments where you choose to sit with your thoughts, your emotions, your patterns, instead of escaping them.

And that is where I find myself now.

Sitting.

Not running.

Not numbing.

Not distracting.

But sitting with the reality of my life.

With my thoughts.

With my emotions.

With everything that comes with being a human being trying to make sense of existence.

And this is where my writing is beginning to shift.

As an author writing under Refined by Fire Press, I am working on another book.

And while I am not ready to share everything about it yet, I will say this.

This next book is deeply psychological.

It is about what it means to sit with life’s emotions.

Not avoid them.

Not fix them.

But sit with them.

Because that has been my life.

A life of feeling deeply.

A life of thinking deeply.

A life of carrying things internally that most people would never articulate.

And I am beginning to realise that there is something in that.

Something worth exploring.

Something worth documenting.

Something worth bringing into the light with honesty.

Because we live in a world that constantly tells us to move on.

To push forward.

To stay busy.

To avoid discomfort.

But what happens when you stop doing that.

What happens when you actually sit still long enough to feel what is going on inside of you.

What happens when you stop running from your own mind.

That is the space I am entering.

And it is not comfortable.

It is not easy.

But it is real.

And I believe there is something important in that.

Because the same way my memoir Kissed by Death told the story of survival, trauma, faith, and redemption, this next work will explore what happens after survival.

What happens when you are still here.

What happens when the crisis has passed, but the internal world is still active.

Still complex.

Still searching.

And that is where I am now.

Not in crisis.

But in awareness.

And awareness can be confronting.

Because it removes your ability to pretend.

It forces you to see things clearly.

To acknowledge what is actually there.

To face yourself without distraction.

And yet, even in that, there is something grounding me.

My faith.

The gospel.

The reality that I am not navigating this life alone.

That there is something greater than me holding all of this together, even when I do not fully understand it.

And as I step into my mornings, into meditation, into revival, I can feel something rising within me that is not coming from my own strength.

There is a stirring.

A quiet fire.

A pull toward prayer that goes beyond my own life and circumstances.

I find myself praying not just for clarity or direction, but for souls.

For people.

For lives that I will never personally meet, yet somehow feel connected to.

I pray for the Lord to save souls across the planet.

From Australia to America.

From Uganda to France.

And as I look across the world, as I watch what the Lord is doing, I find myself encouraged.

Because even in a world marked by war, famine, and broken systems, there are undeniable movements of God taking place.

Especially in places of pressure.

Places of persecution.

Places where faith is not convenient, but costly.

I am deeply encouraged when I think about what is unfolding across parts of Africa, where in the middle of hardship there are powerful moves of the Spirit of God.

Not manufactured.

Not controlled.

But real.

Alive.

Transformational.

And it reminds me that what God is doing is not confined to one place, one culture, or one moment.

It is global.

It is active.

It is unfolding in ways most of us will never fully see.

And somehow, in the quiet of my own life here on the Gold Coast, I feel connected to that.

And I am not walking through this life alone.

Bianca has been a steady presence in my life.

A reminder that love is not just emotion, but commitment.

Showing up.

Building something real.

Our relationship is being shaped in the same way I am being shaped.

Through honesty.

Through growth.

Through learning how to carry life together.

So as I sit here, coffee now cooling beside me, aware of everything that is ahead of me today, I am choosing something simple.

I am choosing not to run.

I am choosing not to pretend.

I am choosing to acknowledge the weight, the responsibility, the anxiety, and still move forward.

Because strength is not the absence of pressure.

It is the ability to remain grounded in the middle of it.

The Word of the Lord is my strength.

And that is what I am holding onto as I step into this day.

Right here on the Gold Coast.

In this life.

In this season.

And for the first time in a long time, I am not trying to escape it.

I am learning to sit in it.

To understand it.

To live it.

Fully.

And that feels like the beginning of something I cannot yet fully explain.

But I know it matters.

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About the Author

Dylan Verdun Sullivan is the founder of Refined by Fire Press and an Australian author indexed in the National Library of Australia. As a Level 7 Local Guide with over 1.7 million views on Google Maps, he documents the intersection of faith, recovery, and the light found in ordinary places.

• Read the Memoir: Kissed by Death on Amazon
• Explore the Journey: Follow Dylan on Google Maps
• Connect on Instagram: @porkysparadise