A New Day Will Come

Morning after morning, we wake to headlines filled with darkness—lies traded for power, riots and murders, the mistreatment of the weak.
We want to change the world, but most days we can barely hold our own lives together.

We see our failures stack up and the darkness grow.
I’ve been there. My first year of teaching was brutal. I was a newly married man, a struggling teacher, and a poor husband. I had students I couldn’t reach, lessons that fell flat, and a wife who needed more of me than I had to give. It would have been easy to give up. I often wondered, What’s the point of all this? Will it ever get better?

That must have been how Frodo felt when he whispered, “I can’t do this, Sam,” while carrying the Ring in The Two Towers.

And Sam’s response is what we all need to hear in these times:

“It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered.
Full of darkness and danger they were, and sometimes you didn’t want to know the end, because how could the end be happy?
How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened?
But in the end it’s only a passing thing, this shadow; even darkness must pass.
A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer.
Those were the stories that stayed with you, that meant something, even if you were too small to understand why.
But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now.
Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t.
They kept going—because they were holding on to something.”

“What are we holding on to, Sam?”
“That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo… and it’s worth fighting for.”

Those words could have been written for us.

Let’s remember who Frodo and Sam were. They weren’t warriors like Aragorn or Gimli, or wise like Legolas and Gandalf. They were hobbits— humble and simple people chosen for the most extraordinary task. Step by step, they slowly carried the Ring toward its destruction.

Were they perfect? Not at all. Frodo even failed at the very end.
But the point wasn’t perfection—it was persistence. It was trust. It was taking the next step forward, even when it seemed impossible.

Most of us can’t control nations, revive cultures, or end hunger. But we aren’t asked to.
We’re asked to show up—every day—as fathers, brothers, sons, and leaders.
We’ll have good days and bad days, victories and failures. But as Sam says:

“A new day will come. And when the sun shines, it will shine out the clearer.”

Each time we keep walking, we become more of the man we were meant to be—and we give others permission to do the same.

This week, focus on the world you can control.
Help the people around you. Keep walking.

Forge Ahead

Anvil: the place of formation.
Arrow: the mission we’re sent on.

The world needs more men formed in virtue. Forward this to a brother who’s ready to grow.

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