Inside the Refiner’s Fire

Posted in More Theresa's Thoughts, personal stuff, Random, teaching, work life by Theresa

Theresa Hemsath sits in her Psychology classroom at a local high school.

It has been a few months since I wrote an update on where we are at. There is so much to unpack, it is hard to know where to begin. But I sit here in a high classroom after school, taking a moment to purge a little before entering quarter grades, and looking out a beautiful window of some sage green hills on a rainy October day.

I’ll start close to where I left off in our last post:

Not only is my husband battling a third round of cancer, but he has had to recover from a Myasthenia Gravis attack in May that almost killed him along with blood clots and pulmonary embolism with pnemonia, then to developing another condition called Pure Red Cell Aplasia which gave him chronic anemia that has required multiple blood transfusions, weakness, swelling, and pain.

The medical bills have piled up.

And Owen no longer works.

We closed our business. returned all the money to clients where we had not fulfilled, and pulled out investment money to live off this summer as I started looking for full-time work.

The idea of trying to salvage our business and grow it without Owen sounded absolutely horrible.

Coaching YouTube made us money, no doubt and helped so many entrepreneurs. But it was never my passion. It was Owen’s. And without passion, a business is not going to be successful.

So what was my passion?

I certainly did miss teaching, and getting my job at Charis helped me rekindle that love and put my foot back in the door by connecting me with the public school system again and reminding me that I am good at teaching teenagers.

So I started applying for jobs and was excited to see a Psychology teaching position pop up at a local high school. While my past teaching experience resided in Language Arts and ESL, I actually minored in Psychology in college and therefore had a credential to teach it. But Psych teaching positions were hard to come by in California. Those who had them, held on to them tightly.

But I applied and I interviewed, and the Lord is good. Out of 25 applicants, they offered me the full-time teaching position at this local high school.

And that is what I have been doing by day since August.

I love the job itself- teaching Psychology is fun! Plus the kids at this school are great, and I feel it a wonderful outlet for me to tap into something that I am good at.

But my oh my, has it been so much work. I’m teaching 3 different Psychology subjects, one of which is AP Psychology. And I have 2 sections for each of these classes, which rotate every other day, and then rotate again every other Friday. Without getting into the weeds of how that works – let me just say – it is overwhelming. It is a lot of prep. Then add that to having a 9 year break from teaching, – there is all this new software and tech I am having to get used to. I’ve been teaching since the old school days where we used overhead projectors with wet-erase markers.

I’ve reminded myself that the first semester will be the hardest. The first year will be the hardest really. So I come in early and I leave late, but I come home with no work to do, so I can focus on my kids and my husband.

I arrive at 530 PM M-F and I begin my second job. Actually it’s my third, because I am still working with Charis to fill in some financial gap needed for our income as well as the mission field it provides me in the pro-life world.

But my job as wife to a husband healing from sickness and my role as a mother to 4 teenagers managing their own emotions through this crazy trial in our lives, along with their own need for growth as humans as they learn how to adult – well it is so much work!

I am tired.

This season is no doubt the most pressing, sanctifying season of my entire life.

More than my first love breakup.

More than my second love breakup.

More than a new marriage.

More than miscarriage.

More than my dad drowning.

More than NICU babies.

More than Cancer round 1 in 2015.

More than my brother relapsing.

More than moving to Utah.

More than Cancer round 2 in 2020.

No, this is so much more.

Through it and in it, as I still am- I am learning so much about where I am actually really strong as well as where I am really weak.

My strength is my endurance.

My ability to shift into survival mode and plow through it without developing addictions or mental illness. To still show up everyday and do it again.

My weakness is my inner world – I struggle with anger, resentment, and a desire to escape.

But I don’t.

I work daily to not feed these selfish aspects of my flesh and to verbally agree with my Spirit, which is entwined with the Holy Spirit.

I want redemption and resurrection, transformation and healing, hope and life, and life abundant.

I do not agree with the desires of flesh, which lead to death – despair – sickness – strife.

So I need to forgive myself and not identify with those desires because the flesh is not me. It is my “old man.”

The biggest lesson I am learning in this – is that I need Jesus for every aspect of my life. I need to come to Him for EVERTHING, reflect him in everything, and serve those around me as if He were serving them – therefore it is my own service to God.

That service is such a blessing as we actually become the hands and feet of Jesus.

This season has given me an ability to fully experience “the body of Christ” through others.

The love, service, and support we have received from our church family has been so humbling. There is no way we could have gotten through and continue to get through any of this without the body. Some may say- what about Jesus? Yes – this IS Jesus. I am not having an encounter with the spirit of Jesus or some vision of Jesus but the living, resurrected Jesus working through the church as his actual body with hands and feet.

This morning – I asked the Lord to speak into me in areas where I can reflect Him more. He spoke to me through associations and lead me to a new conviction:

I desire for him to cultivate in me a “gentle and quiet spirit” that Peter described as pleasing to the Lord.

I currently do not have it.

Don’t get me wrong, I can be gentle and quiet.

But when I feel misunderstood, misjudged, or unappreciated – I am anything but that.

This season of my life has given me many frustrating moments of feeling misunderstood, misjudged, and unappreciated in my home.

And I have failed to respond with that gentle and quiet spirit.

Survival mode doesn’t do that.

Survival mode wakes up that protector inside of me who is quick to run to my defense.

I’ve got to stop letting her take over and instead allow Jesus to play that role. Jade, I will call her just causes more problems for me.

So if you are a believer, please pray for me. Pray that as I sit in the Lord’s furnace, allowing him to burn out the impurities in me through this trial, that I reflect him more with a gentle and quiet spirit. That he begin to see his own reflection in me.

I don’t want to be in this fire any longer.

I want joy. I want rest. I want peace.

I want it here and now and do not want to wait until heaven to get it. I have no idea if that request will be made manifest in this lifetime.

But if He see’s His reflection in me, my hope is that he takes me out of the fire and sit me in the green pastures to drink from the cool streams of living water before bringing me to his dinner table and anoint my head with oil.

In THIS life.

If not, I will still commit.

I have reminded myself and others that this life is but one grain of sand in the beaches of eternity. That who I am is not just who I am here in this world, but who I am in eternity. This is merely stage 1. I have millions of lifetimes ahead of me to lay in green pastures.

But I do desire the kingdom here this side of eternity.

I want my husband completely healed.
I want my children loving and following the Lord, responsible, and loving our family while driven with purpose in their lives.
I want to no longer be financially struggling. That we are able to bring in other streams of income to the meager salary my teaching job brings us.
I want laughter and joy.
I want to travel again, to hike, to snowboard.
I want my kids to be able to be in athletic teams again that require big monthly dues.
I want marital romance and dreams.
I want to have time to devote more to ministry and to counsel because I am no longer so desperate to survive, that I require the ministry and counsel of others.

So this is my short, choppy, update.

No eloquent, complex-compound sentences. No alliteration or cadence.

Just raw, unrevised, authentic, transparent words of a woman in the refiner’s fire.

17Jun2026

Our Wilderness of 2026

Posted in #LifeWins, personal stuff, Religion/Christianity/Philosophy, The Hemsath Life by Theresa

Back in 2020, I had a vision that I thought was fulfilled in 2022. Now I believe I’m still in it. I saw my entire visual field go black. And it stayed in darkness for a long, long time. And then- a spark of light lit up the bottom right corner and spread slowly at first, then building momentum and finally filling my entire visual field with light. It consumed the darkness.

I knew it was the Lord telling me that I was about to enter a season of my life that would be quite hard. But that ultimately, it would end and end wonderfully- end with hope and love and peace.

When we discovered Owen’s cancer was back in September of 2020, we entered darkness. And it actually started slightly before that when we moved to Utah from California and my 13 year old son did not come with us. I was in such despair over Kanan staying with his father in California. Then add Owen’s cancer and the prognosis of “nothing we can do. You have 2-5 years statistically.” Well…. it was quite dark.

Then we began to fight the cancer and Owen started to get better. Our business grew and while it was so hard to not see Kanan every other week in our usual 50/50 custody schedule, he came to visit often. I was able to actually homeschool our kids and work less in our business. And in April of 2025 I was offered a part time job at a local pregnancy clinic that fulfilled every dream I ever had for a career. One that only the Lord would know- detailed in the private journals of my life. I felt in my gut that he was giving to me for a reason. That it was a stepping stool to something more he was preparing me for.

Then last November of 2025 Owen started developing a cough.

He grew sicker and sicker and worked less and less.

Then on May 5th, I took him to the ER for respiratory failure. And our life entered more darkness than ever before.

He almost died in that hospital.

They saved his life and I’m so grateful that he was there when he went into a Myasthenia Gravis Crisis.

There’s a new prognosis. It is not good. But I refuse to speak it and give it life. Ultimately, God and not doctors are the givers and takers of life. And God is bigger than all. I will let him decide, no one else.

But that does not mean we are not in a very hard wilderness season. Owen’s inability to work is leading to us to have to consider closing our business.

His disability checks won’t come until November.

My part time job will not be able to sustain us.

We have some savings in place to help us through summer. After that, it runs out.

I am trusting that Lord take us to our promise land, but I know that the length of time we spend in the wilderness depends entirely on our faith and willingness to obey him and follow him through it. To not let fear lead our hearts astray.

I’m starting to apply for teaching positions. And I’ve let my director know at the Pregnancy Clinic I work at that I would love to work full time in any area she sees my giftings would be helpful.

And guess what else?

My son, in his folly in college made some choices that lead him to need to come to Utah and live with us. My prayer was that the Lord would redeem the 5 years I lost when we moved to Utah.

It will be a wilderness season for him as well. But my prayer is that Lord timed all of this for a reason.

He is tearing down and rebuilding and redeeming all at the same time.

I do not know when everything is filled with light.

But my director and spiritual mentor from the pregnancy clinic gave me a wise word a couple of days ago.

She said, “do not be fooled into believing this is merely a financial or health crisis. This is a spiritual and existential one. Cling to the Lord. And remember he has a 100% success rate. The biggest lesson through all of this will be spiritual.

Sit it in it.

There is no striving in Jesus.

So I’m here trying to rest. I’m doing the things that I believe are responsible and being a good steward. But reminding myself to not allow fear wear the mask of responsibility. And not allow my responsibility to hide my motive of fear. To see my responsibility merely as a collaboration with the almighty. I can plant. I can water. But it is God who grows and he who produces the harvest.

I can only operate within the time, matter, space, and energy he has provided me in this dimension.

Since he is outside of that, he sees what I don’t see. And he can manipulate any of these laws he set in place to work together for good what he has in store.

Lord, may we I hear one day, “well done my good and faithful servant.”

If you want to help us during this time- we certainly can use the loving hands and feet of our friends and family.

I promise you, I do not want to stay here.

My friends have started this page for us here for support — > https://mealtrain.com/wn4k20

23Oct2014

Perspective on my Purpose

Posted in About Me, busy mom by Theresa

The big theme of my life is to give more and stop being “too busy.” Love is not selfish. If I want to reflect God more in my life, I need to give more.

My pastor of my church has been taking us through an in depth study of Solomon’s Ecclesiastes. The deeper we go, the more we can see that Solomon saw the purposelessness of life without God and then how much God takes that and gives us purpose and meaning in all that we do when we center it on him.

It got me thinking.

Does every aspect of my life seek to glorify God?

And if not, how can I change my perspective on that aspect and create a deeper Christ-centered consciousness in that area.

So this is just a brain storm but I’m thinking about every big area/role of my life.

Wife– How can I reflect God more in my role as a wife? I think I want to seek to understand my husband more, and to make sure especially during the next few months to attain to his sexual and emotional needs even when I am tired, dripping with breast milk, and over all not feeling sexy or loving and probably struggling with wavering post partum emotions (I hope not, but I’ve had postpartum anxiety with all three of my previous babies). But God wants us to be self-sacrificing and especially with our spouses, seeking to meet their needs above our own.
Mother– I want to continue praying with my children each day but also reflecting God more by showing more patience and being less quick to yelling. I yell when they don’t listen. I know I can do better at this by being more consistent with training them to obey the first time, so that I’m not lead to frustration which prompts me to yell. I also want to make sure that my three boys feel loved even when they have to share attention with the new baby. I’d also like to get back into memorizing bible verses with the boys–something Owen got us started on last year, but since we moved we started slacking on.
Homemaker– on top of working full time, and wanting to spend quality time with the kids in the few hours I have left with them at the end of the day and on the weekends, I just hate cleaning. Owen is very busy as well with his business. So cleaning gets put on the back-burner. I mean I clean every day. But it pretty much stays with the dishes and then a quick clutter check. By Sunday I can get around to doing a couple of loads of laundry, a sweep and a mop, a vacuum, and if I’m really good–a bathroom scrub down. This is stressful. I get grumpy. Especially if I feel like I’m the only one doing it. The kids help, but they are so young, its not a significant help. I want to have more of a heart of service. A heart of finding joy in serving my family by providing a clean home for them. But I also don’t want to be a Martha (see the book of John). I want to be wise when its time to put the scrub brush away and spend time with my kids. I don’t want them to remember their childhood as a time when Mom just cleaned and they played alone.
Teacher-– I work in a public school. I wish I could just evangelize the entire time to this lost generation. I make sure though to give a different perspective and worldview on things when the topics arise. There is this christian group that shows up on Thursdays at lunch that feeds free pizza to kids who come and then gives them a gospel message. Tons of kids go. And they aren’t christian. I talked with the person who runs it and asked her if she’d be willing to have a day where Christian teachers could give a quick 2 minute testimony to the kids. So the kids know that intelligent people can believe in Jesus. She loved the idea. When I come back from maternity I’ll pursue that a bit more. I also need to check with my teacher’s union to find out if I would be supported should I get any attacks from other teachers, students, parents, or administrators for making a stand during this meeting.
Friend– I don’t spend time with my friends very often. And lately it seems like I’ve been more on the receiving end of blessings than I have been on the giving end. I want to check in with friends more. Find out how they are doing more. And if I can’t see them, to at least encourage them more via text or a phone call.
Sister– same thing. Send out more encouraging texts. Make more attempts to get together. And be an example with the way I live my life.
Daughter-– I don’t see my mom enough. I don’t call her enough. For the most part, I feel like I’m a pretty lame daughter. She lives in Newport Beach in a one room condo, so coming up with my big family seems often like an impossible feat. But I want to call her more at least. I’d like to talk at least once a week. Some of my friends talk with their mom’s every day. I would love to have that with my mom. But I can’t live my life wanting something but never making the effort to do that. I want her to know that even though we don’t see each other often, that I love her.
Granddaughter--I want to finish my Grandmother Lois’s memoirs. I’m going to start in a couple of weeks. We are going to set up Monday calls. She tell me her life. I’ll record it. Then I’ll transcribe the recording by typing it out. She can’t write anymore, she is getting so tired. And she’s on an oxygen tank now. I want her to have her book before she goes. As for my other grandma, I want to call her more. My grandfather died a few months back and I know she stays busy, but I don’t want her to feel forgotten in that old folks home way up in L.A.
Entrepreneur/Writer-– reflect God in all that I do by being encouraging and patient with my old memoir clients. To do a great job with every resume so that when my resume clients see that bible verse under my name in my email signature, they can say that the Christian resume writer had integrity and worked hard. We don’t need any more negative stereotypes about Christians. Finally, to get those Children’s books done. They are all Christ-centered. I just need people to read them!

I think the big theme here is for me to give more and stop using busy as my excuse. I get so busy, I tend to make busy our excuse for not loving people enough. For not being that light in their lives. It takes self-sacrifice. I struggle with the desire to blame. But Christ never did this. For me, my big issue is being too busy to reflect God. What is yours? What can you change in your life to show to reflect God more?

5Aug2014

How Do You Teach a 6-Year-Old to Love in Action?

Posted in Children's books, Kanan news, The Hemsath Life by Theresa

About a year ago, my oldest son was 6-years-old and struggling with the typical issues 6-year-olds struggle with: selfishness, boasting, being rude…just a me-first attitude, really. I remember telling him that what he was doing was not showing love. He immediately defended himself–” I love you all, Mom!”

That when I realized, I hadn’t really showed him what loving in action looked like. I just said he needed to love.

That’s when I went to the only source I trust for truth and teaching– the bible. I found that famous scripture in 1 Corinthians.

“Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. Love does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable, and does not count up wrongdoing. It does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (ESV 1 Corinthians 13: 4-7)

So I read it to him.

“What is patient, Mom?”

” Patient means we wait for what we want without whining, crying, or screaming. Jesus is patient with us when we make mistakes. He waits for us to do the right thing without acting unloving.”

“What is counting up wrongdoing mean?”

I realized then, that I needed to come up with a way to explain it to him. So I went on Amazon to look for books on the topic. Nothing but silly stories out there with rhymes and such that never really explained it.

That was when I knew I just needed to write the book myself. So I did. I started writing it that summer. Even started the illustrations. And I used those to help teach my son how to love like Jesus. So I wrote the book. Its called How to Love Like Jesus: A Guide for Children and Their Parents.

It has been a year, and I’m finally back in that book. I’ve revised it. I’ve finished the illustrations (pretty much) in Photoshop, and I”m almost ready to venture into the self-publication stage. But the added beauty to it is–I’ve written 2 more and co-written another 2 more with my friend Kelly. So there is much more to come. And I’ve got a few ideas for even more when I’m ready for the second and third wave of writing. This summer has been a turbo-charged writing session, but I’m excited about where it might go. For my kids. And for others.

I will definitely be thanking my son Kanan for being the inspiration for my first book. And my hope and prayer is that there are other children and parents out there who could use this book too.

What do you find your kids need help in understanding? What books do you use? What books are not out there and need to be written?

25Apr2008

Those Amazing Teachable Moments

Posted in memoirs, personal stuff, poetry by Theresa

If someone had asked me why I wanted to teach high school students or to teach English, they would not hear me speak about my excitement over creating grammar trees or analyzing the conflict in the plot of a story or determining whether or not Hamlet is insane. I wanted and still want to teach high school students through literature and writing because I want to make a difference in their lives. Literature and writing was the only avenue that allowed me to get in touch with my emotions in high school and college. High school is a terribly confusing time for most teenagers and many of them, I myself was one of them, couldn’t find solace at home. How much I would have loved to hear from someone willing to talk about the struggles of being a teenager and how they got through it. Someone who truly understood what I was going through and willing to admit some of the things they learned. Someone who could be a good example to me.

Of course, I have long stretches of time in my classes where all I do end up teaching them is how to analyze a character and how to determine whether a word is an adjective or an adverb, but every once in a while, I am blessed with an opportunity to teach my teenagers about life. Sometimes it may be through the theme of a story that everyone is into and I can hear their silence…but a different kind. A silence that screams thought and contemplation instead of boredom or apathy. But even better are those moments before, during, or after school, when I can teach them about something that is affecting them right now.

I had that moment today.

We just finished a unit on Poetry. I love poetry and I loved poetry in high school. But one thing I remember from poetry in high school is that I learned more from the poems that connected to my life than the poems that Walt Whitman or Emily Dickinson ever wrote about. Browsing through the curriculum that I was to teach this year, I couldn’t help but notice how quickly we would rush through poetry without ever having students learn how to apply it to their own writing or to have them share poems that make them think or feel something. So I made some adjustments. I required each one of my students to either bring in a poem that they wrote or a poem that someone else wrote, but that they liked. Everyday, someone would read their poem and we would talk about it before jumping into the day’s lesson. I even told them that I wanted this poetry unit to be meaningful to them. And as we studied poetry, I often asked them to think about how they could write poetry using some of the figurative language or techniques that the poets of our curriculum used. I saw many amateur poets excitedly practicing their skills on their college-ruled lined paper that they folded and stuffed into pockets or passed on to friends in the halls.

Today one of my students brought in a poem that she wrote. It was a free-verse confessional poem about the masks she wears and her desperation to be liberated from the lies she lies behind. She started to cry while reading it and the entire class was screaming the silence of complete understanding. We all gave her a big group hug and when I heard students whispering to each other about how they felt the sameway and when I saw tears well up in a few empathetic audience members, I knew I had to set aside my lesson for the moment and use this opportunity to teach them something.

I asked them to raise their hand if they felt the way she did. Every single hand went up. Twenty hands from twenty 14-year-olds of every color and social group and intelligence level. Twenty teenagers who thought that no one understood them, but learned right there that they had more in common then they thought. For half an hour we talked about the masks we wear in high school. About how tough it is when we don’t know who we are. I shared with them how much I had felt the same way when I was a freshman. And then I felt called to take it to a deeper level and bring up how so many teenagers turn to drugs to find comfort in their confusion and how this just fuels the vicious cycle of not being self-actualized. I explained to them that what they are feeling is normal– about the development of their frontal lobe and what areas of our thinking and acting that it influences. Also coincidentally, the very same part of the brain that drugs destroy, slowing its development or preventing it from ever developing at all until they find themselves at the age of 35 and realizing they are at the emotional level of a 14-year-old and wonder if it is too late to ever figure life out. Students asked a lot of questions. Questions about alcohol and marijuana. About where to draw the line. About what to do about “friends” who are abusing drugs. I had one student ask me what she could do to help herself not feel so lost and confused. She finally realized she was normal, but still wanted hope. I gave them both secular and spiritual advice. I told her and the rest of the class to write, to exercise, to stay active, to do more of the things that help them release emotions and energy. I told them to associate themselves with people who love and respect them no matter who they are, be it family or close, true friends. And I told them, that for me, Jesus has made a difference. I made sure to say “for me” so that I couldn’t be accused of telling them they HAD to develop a personal relationship with their creator even though I wanted to so bad. This is definitely one of the downsides of working in public education and I’m not sure if I will have a job tomorrow. But the atmosphere of the class had gotten so personal at that moment, I think it will stay indoors. If not, I have faith that I will be okay.

It was hard to change the subject to our analytical essays afterward, but we all made the transition. I told them that they could come and talk to me anytime they wanted and that I would listen and not judge them and to do my best to share my wisdom. I told them that our class was a family and I watched their heads nod in agreement. It was a powerful moment.

In the end, it really doesn’t matter if these kids walk away from my class knowing the difference between a simile and a metaphor. But if they walk our of my door knowing that they are not alone and there is light at the end of the dark tunnel of adolescence without masks or drugs or suicide, then to me, I have made a difference. I hope they all sleep a little better tonight. And maybe try writing another poem again soon.

17Feb2008

Peter and I share something in common

Posted in Religion/Christianity/Philosophy by Theresa

This video touched me so much! I knew Peter had denied Jesus three times, but never read this part of the Gospel of John. I went back into my bible after seeing this and read the passage od John 21. Apparently “Agape” means a self-sacrificing love and “phileo” means a brotherly love. I remember this a scene earlier when Jesus was washing the feet of his diciples and Peter didn’t want him to do it because he felt that Jesus was too good to be doing such a lowly job. Jesus told him that Peter didn’t understand what he was doing but that some day he would. I think that conversation between Jesus and Peter by the Sea of Galilee finally taught him what Jesus was all about. And Peter later became a powerful witness to God and was later crucified himself for being a Christian.

I asked Jesus into my heart when I was 10 years old, but fell away from the path when I was in high school. And for 12 years, I didn’t go back because I felt like I wasn’t worthy. When we ask Jesus into our heart, we actually form a marriage with Christ. The marriage of Christ and his Church. While this video refers to our “marriage,” it is actually talking about how to apply our marriage with our spouse in the same way Jesus applied the marriage between us and him. Whether we are married or not, I think this still speaks so much about our need to recommit our lives to Christ if we have separated ourselves from him. The conversation between Jesus and Peter, also happend between Jesus and I about two months ago. This video totally captures the emotion I felt when I felt him calling me back. For those of you who have divorced Christ like I did at some point in your life, I hope this video brings you as much hope as it did me. Jesus is truly an awesome God!

God Bless!