Follow a thread through the story
These are not boxes to keep a life inside. They are five threads that keep reappearing as I look back.
All connections Learning to Live What I Thought I Knew Life Love Faith The Story My Journey
The moments that happened: memories, encounters, turning points, and the people who shaped my life.
My Story Awakening
I Saw Jesus in the Red Letters At seventeen, in John's basement bedroom, I opened a King James Bible and saw Jesus in the red letters. I felt as though He had chosen me.
My Story Seeking
The Fire in the Early Years The house meetings in Hampton felt like family. We sang, listened, asked questions, and made room for the children to speak.
My Story Breaking
I Wanted My Children to Know Me I wanted to be a father my children could know. I loved playing with them, and I also brought anger and selfishness into our home.
Fatherhood Parenting Relationships
My Story Breaking
The Motel Room After the waterbed venture fell apart, I found myself in a rundown motel room with a hotplate and a tiny television. My children were the reason I kept going.
My Story Learning
Day by Day, I Kept Going A furniture store gave me work as a manager. Later came television, a house, and more years of learning what my children needed from me.
Fatherhood Learning Through Experience Relationships
My Story Seeing
Learning to Receive Love I kept returning to Jesus, even through years when I could not feel His presence. Later I began to experience Him close to me again.
My Story Seeing
Learning to Look Again Every decade I have seen some part of life differently. I want to share what changed in me and leave others room to see for themselves.
Wisdom Relationships Learning Through Experience
My Story Legacy
The Work Still in Me I want to leave my children and grandchildren what I have lived and learned. This past year I have begun to trust God with the time and the work.
Story Wonder
The Phantom Limb My father abandoned our family when I was only four or five. His absence created a phantom limb in my emotional life — a constant longing for masculine validation.
The Father Abandonment Identity
Story Wonder
The Man of the House Well-meaning relatives looked at me and said, 'You're the man of the house now.' I was just a boy, entirely clueless about how to anchor myself, let alone carry the emotional survival of an entire family.
Story Breaking
The Porch I was standing on the front porch when I saw my five-year-old son walking home from kindergarten with his shoulders completely slumped. In one agonizing flash, I realized I was the reason he looked that way.
Fatherhood Failure Redemption
Story Learning
Building the Sanctuary My house became their clean, structured sanctuary — a place where they could just breathe and be teenagers. I drew an ironclad boundary: no relationship would ever integrate into our family unit.
Fatherhood Parenting Purpose
Story Seeing
The Bittersweet Ache I consciously poured everything I had into raising them to be exceptionally strong, independent people. And that intention backfired on me. The very strength I gave them is the thing that keeps them from needing me.
Fatherhood Relationships Legacy
Story Legacy
What My Grandson Taught Me About Prayer Last night, my oldest grandson said the timing of what I sent him was perfect — he was trying to understand his own faith apart from his parents' faith. Sitting alone with tears running down my face, I realized none of it had been wasted.
Prayer Grandfatherhood Legacy
Story Seeing
A Realization About the Women I've Loved This morning I had a thought that surprised me. The women I've loved throughout my life have shared something with my mother — a certain insecurity, a way of seeing what was wrong before seeing what was good. I'm beginning to wonder if what felt familiar wasn't always what was healthiest.
Relationships Self-Awareness Grace
Story Seeing
Becoming a Grandfather Changed My Theology Looking down into the eyes of those innocent grandchildren, I experienced a depth of unconditional love that I didn't know the human heart was capable of. It shattered my understanding of the Father's heart.
The Father Grace Grandfatherhood
Encounter Awakening
The Basement Bedroom In John's bedroom in the basement, I read the red words in a King James Bible and felt that I was meeting Jesus.
Encounter Awakening
Yeah The next day Russ, the friend I had spent so much time with, asked, “So are you a Jesus freak now?” I said, “Yeah,” and walked into school.
Encounter Awakening
In Jesus' Name The atmosphere inside the car suddenly shifted into something thick and malicious. She lunged for my throat. In that split second of panic, a phrase dropped into my mind from completely outside my own intellect.
Encounter Seeking
The Home Meetings In Hampton, families gathered in a circle to sing, share, and ask questions. Even the children could speak. To me it felt like family.
Religion and Relationship Community Faith
Encounter Seeing
Who Is Between Me and You? I was in church with my eyes closed when the back wall vanished. Three majestic horses and their riders charged toward me. A piercing voice asked a single question that changed everything.
Jesus Religion and Relationship Freedom