10/29/2025
Honored to be apart of this production. Recreating bouquets for the wedding ceremony.
Often the most beautiful parts of our lives are the very ones we tuck away.
We hide them in closets, leave them in boxes, store them in corners, push them back into
the shadows. We forget about them, all they meant, and the beauty they still possess until something draws those pieces of our lives back into the light.
I saw this on full display during the final day of filming Soul On Fire Movie.
We were filming the wedding scene at the Shrine of Saint Joseph —the same church where Beth and I married two decades earlier. There were cameras, lights, hundreds of crew members working throughout the church and actors across the altar and in the front pews.
The pews behind them, though, were packed with real family and friends. Mom and Dad sat in the second row on the groom’s side. Beth’s mom and family were just across the aisle. And behind them? Dozens of friends and family who had been there to celebrate our wedding decades earlier.
It felt less like filming a scene for a film and more like reliving a sacred moment.
Then our director yelled, “Action!” With that, the cameras rolled, the back doors swung open and down the aisle walked Masey McLain Stanley. Portraying Beth, she was radiant, poised, joyful, beautiful. But what moved me most in that moment wasn’t the resemblance to Beth or the fact that so many in the room had stood in that very spot years earlier.
It was the dress.
Masey wore the EXACT gown Beth had worn on our wedding day.
For two decades it had been boxed up, tucked away, hidden in the dark. Out of sight, out of mind. And then, on this day, for this scene, for this moment, it was removed from some container, worn by Masey, and brought back into the light—shining, radiant, stunning.
My friends, sometimes the gifts of our past, the memories of what was, the parts of our story we think are over aren’t meant to stay locked away. Sometimes they’re meant to be celebrated again, reminding us both of who we are and how far we’ve come.
Seeing that dress, for me, was a reminder to celebrate a moment still worth cherishing and evidence that even after years in the dark, beauty can still shine.
So, what about you? What gifts in your life have been boxed up too long? What relationships or dreams have been tucked away in your closet? What might you bring back into the light, not just as a memory of what was, but as a reminder of all that still can be?
I can’t wait for you to see Beth’s dress shine again on the big screen in SOUL ON FIRE. But more than that, I can’t wait for you to remember that your gifts still hold value and your treasures can shine again.
Maybe it’s time to bring them into the light.
Today is your day. Live Inspired.