Iron Sharpens Iron at 62

September 19, 2026

God never intended for us to journey through this life alone.

I have learned that the hard way, and by the grace of God, I have also learned it the blessed way. The Lord has a way of placing people along our path at just the right time. Some encourage us. Some pray for us. Some pick us up when our legs are tired. And every now and then, He sends somebody who loves us enough to look us in the eye and tell us what we need to hear, not simply what we want to hear.

On Tuesday, September 22, 2026, I will turn 62 years old. Birthdays have a way of slowing a man down just long enough to look back over the road he has traveled and count the faces God has placed along the way. At 62, I can see more clearly than ever that I was never supposed to walk this road by myself.

I measure my life a little differently these days. On July 30, 2019, I expired. The old man who went onto that operating table did not come back. By the mercy and grace of Almighty God, I was given another life. As I write this, that is 2,608 days I was never promised. On my birthday, it will be 2,611 days since the day I should have been gone.

Every sunrise since then has been borrowed light. Every breath has been mercy. Every mile has been grace. And when I look back over those miles, one thing becomes very clear: God has rarely asked me to walk them alone.

Scripture tells us:

“As iron sharpens iron, so a man sharpens the countenance of his friend.”

Proverbs 27:17

Solomon was not writing something pretty for us to hang on a wall. He was describing how God builds people.

Iron cannot sharpen iron from across the room. There has to be contact. There will be pressure. There will be friction. Sometimes there will even be sparks. But when the purpose is right and the hands are faithful, neither piece of iron leaves the encounter the same.

I have seen that truth lived out in ways I could never have planned.

After the April 27, 2011 tornadoes tore through Alabama, I left coaching in Georgia and came home because it was all hands on deck. People were hurting. Communities were broken. Families had lost homes, possessions, and in some cases people they loved. Football suddenly did not seem quite as important as it had the week before.

That August, former Alabama and Auburn lettermen, men who had spent years trying to knock each other into next week on Saturdays, stood together on the same field at Spain Park. We raised about $150,000 for people who had lost almost everything.

Out of that spirit of unity, Lettermen of the USA was born.

We did not build it so one man's name could be remembered. We built it because we discovered something much bigger than a scoreboard. Rivals can become brothers when the cause is greater than the rivalry. Alabama men can still love crimson. Auburn men can still love orange and royal blue. We simply learned that the colors we wear are not the deepest thing about us.

That is iron sharpening iron.

Over the years, God has continued teaching me that lesson. Sometimes it happened around a table at Salem's Diner in those early days. Sometimes it came through an A-Club brother like Phil Murphy reminding me, “Sometimes you just turn it over to Him.” Sometimes it has happened at the Friday morning men's breakfast in Pell City, with men from every walk of life gathered around a table, some of them carrying scars nobody else in the room can see.

Those men do not need to flatter me. I do not need another man to tell me I am right when I am wrong. I need brothers who will pray for me, challenge me, encourage me, hold me accountable, and remind me that no ministry, no organization, and no calling from God was ever intended to rest on the shoulders of one man.

I have needed those men more times than I can count.

I needed them after July 30, 2019. I have needed them through storms with boards, organizations, relationships, and life itself. I have needed them during those quiet walks on Pinedale Road when there was nobody around but me and the Lord, and I wondered whether there was enough left in the tank for another mile.

Sometimes God answered that question through another man.

A phone call. A prayer. A hand on the shoulder. A cup of coffee. A Scripture verse. A brother saying, “Keep going.”

There have been times when another man's faith carried a lantern while mine was burning low. There have been times when somebody else's testimony reminded me that God had not changed simply because my circumstances had. There have been times when a friend helped me see a road I could not see for myself.

That is what godly friendship can do.

And maybe that is part of what Jesus meant when He called ordinary men and said, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.”

A fisherman understands patience. He understands that you cannot always see beneath the surface. He knows there are days when you cast the net and seemingly bring back nothing. But he goes back out because he believes there is something worth reaching beneath the water.

People are like that too.

You never know what is underneath the surface of another person's life. The veteran sitting quietly at the end of the table may be fighting a battle he has never told anybody about. The former athlete everybody remembers for his glory days may be wondering whether the best part of his life is behind him. The businessman who appears to have everything together may go home carrying a burden nobody sees. The man sitting beside you at breakfast may need somebody to remind him that his life still has purpose.

That is why we keep casting the net.

Through Lettermen of the USA, I have watched veterans who carried burdens for years discover that somebody was willing to walk beside them. I have watched former athletes and coaches realize that the influence God gave them was not supposed to end when the stadium lights went dark. I have watched people from different schools, backgrounds, professions, and generations come together because helping another human being mattered more than whatever once divided them.

Sometimes being a fisher of men is not standing behind a pulpit. Sometimes it is sitting across a table.

Sometimes it is answering the phone.

Sometimes it is showing up.

Sometimes it is walking beside a veteran one yard at a time until he remembers that he does not have to carry the whole field by himself.

At 62, and more than 2,600 days into a life I did not earn, I understand friendship differently than I did as a younger man. Age has a way of stripping away the illusion that grit alone will carry you. Grit matters. Discipline matters. Courage matters. But eventually every strong man discovers that there are loads God never intended him to carry alone.

That is why the Lord sends people.

The sharpening goes both ways, though. God did not place good men in my life only for what they could do for me. He placed me in their lives for a purpose too. The same is true for you.

Your encouragement may be exactly what a veteran needs today. Your testimony may keep another man from making the mistake that almost destroyed you. Your phone call may reach somebody on the very day he had decided nobody cared. Your faith may become the evidence another person needs that God is still faithful when the lights go out.

Never underestimate what God can do with one person who is willing to show up.

But iron sharpening iron requires humility. I have to be willing to listen instead of simply waiting for my turn to talk. I have to receive correction without treating every disagreement like an attack. And when God gives me the opportunity to speak into another person's life, my words must come from love, wisdom, and prayer, not from some need to prove that I am right.

Godly sharpening is not about tearing another man down. It is about knocking off the rough edges so both men become more useful in the Master's hands.

As I approach my 62nd birthday, I look around at the people God has given me. I see lettermen and coaches who still answer the phone. I see veterans who have trusted us enough to let us walk beside them. I see board members, partners, volunteers, and friends who stayed when leaving would have been easier. I see the men around the Brook Besor breakfast table. I see family still tending land along the Coosa that generations before us worked, prayed over, and passed down.

And I see fingerprints.

God's fingerprints.

They are all over my life.

I hope mine are on a few lives too, not because people remember my name, but because somewhere along the road they saw Jesus a little more clearly. When my final whistle blows, I do not want the story to be about games won, titles held, money raised, or names on letterhead. I want there to be people who can say, “He walked with me when I needed somebody.”

Because trophies collect dust. Records eventually get broken. Stadiums empty. Titles change hands. But a life touched for Christ reaches into eternity.

Maybe that is the real scoreboard.

Jesus did not call us simply to gather people around ourselves. He called us to follow Him and become fishers of men. That means sometimes casting the net into uncomfortable water. It means seeing the person everybody else overlooks. It means believing there is still purpose in the man who thinks his useful days are behind him. It means walking into somebody else's storm because Christ once walked into ours.

I have been given 2,608 extra days as I write these words. I do not know how many more are on the calendar, and neither do you. But I know what I want to do with the ones God gives me.

I want to keep walking with people. I want to keep sharpening and being sharpened. I want to keep casting the net. I want to keep reminding veterans, athletes, coaches, friends, family, and anybody else God puts in my path that they are not walking alone.

And when the road gets steep, we will take it the same way we always have.

One yard at a time, together, with our eyes on Jesus.

The right friendships strengthen our faith, shape our character, steady us in the storms, and help us become the people God created us to be. So today, think about the people God has placed around you. Thank Him for the ones who sharpen you, and then ask Him a harder question: Whose life have You placed me in to sharpen?

There may be somebody waiting on the other side of your obedience.

If you need prayer, we are here to pray with you. If you need someone to walk beside you, reach out. And if God has placed somebody on your heart while reading this, do not wait until tomorrow to call them.

Heavenly Father, thank You for every person You have placed along my road and for every day You have given me since July 30, 2019. As I turn 62 Tuesday , give me the humility to receive wise correction, the courage to speak truth with grace, and the heart to encourage those who are struggling. Teach me to be a friend who shows up, a brother who stays, and a servant who points people toward You. Help us sharpen one another without wounding one another. Open our eyes to the people beneath the surface who need someone to cast the net one more time. Use whatever days we have left for Your glory, and make us fishers of men. In the name of Jesus, Amen.

One yard at a time,

Darryl Fuhrman

Chief bottle washer

Lettermen of the USA