It's been nearly two years since I've posted anything here.

It's unbelievable to see that my last post was written with so much hopeful anticipation.

In short, my life would turn upside-down just a few months later.

I was walking in a Veteran's Park a few miles from the parsonage I was living in with my daughter in Great Bend, Kansas when I got the text, "I want a divorce."

My knees crumbled as I feel into a heap on the walking path. A switch of desperation was flipped on. 

Two days later I would fly home to North Carolina, thinking I could somehow, someway salvage my marriage. I didn't know for sure what was going on.

My hopes were quickly dashed. There was no hope. The nightmare wasn't going to end at least anytime soon. I've never cried so much in my entire life. All I had was God and a few friends a phone call away.

(The tears and despair would last for about 8 months.)

I remember having to make the impossible choice to give up the ministry position I had waited NINE YEARS for in order to move back home to co-parent. I hated that word, co-parent.

Today, as I sit in a coffee shop trying to write a sermon filled with hope the station I was streaming played a song that was "in rotation" during two of the most loneliest months I ever had. 

The song is called "Anthem" by Emancipator. Take a listen and take in an audio view of my life at that time. It's definitely somber, like a scene where the main character in a movie dies. But there's more to it than that, it's chaotically hopeful while carrying a sense of sorrow at the same time.

For that time, most of the music I listened to didn't have lyrics. I had all the thoughts I needed in my own head. I couldn't bear anyone else's words at that time. Exactly the words you don't want to hear a minister say.

Those feelings mixed with what has already been a rough week threatens to knock me off kilter. But, I desperately want to look back on the journey as a season of growth and not a season of torment.

I'm not the same person I was 10, 5 or even 2 years ago. If I'm being completely honest, I'm not even the same person I was 3 months ago.

In the past, I would be knocked down, yearning to fast-forward life in sleep, hoping that I would magically feel better, that problems would go away like powering a cell phone off and on. Sometimes it works but for my situation I needed a spiritual update, my soul needed new functions.

I can confidently say that for the first time in my life, I had no choice but to pray to God, to make my faith in Jesus Christ be as real as it could be. In the midst of being broken down, grinded to dust, I became a better father, a much more empathetic person and a more well-rounded minister.

I'm glossing over a lot of mistakes that I made, a lot of begging and time wasted but I was shards and God made me into a completely different vessel that was able to carry a lot more than I could beforehand. I was remade to be stronger, able to withstand more than before. I never truly gave God the honor to remake me as the potter with clay.

But I had no choice. I gave all (which wasn't much) to God in the winter of 2020 and I stand before you now a visibly different person only because I've been remade. The Heavenly Father, in many ways, had to re-teach me how to walk because my spiritual knees were crippled on that grey day in November at Veteran's Park in Great Bend.

He can remake you, too. Don't wait until you have no choice, but even if that's where you find yourself, there's never a bad time to begin praying. Say what you want, tell God what you need to get off your chest. I promise He will meet you there. Or I will meet you there and encourage you until you can hear Him and see Him move.

For I am not invincible but with God I am, like a toothpick duct-taped to a lead pipe. And you can be, too.

May the Prince of Peace meet you where you are, may you give up what you're carrying and give God the opportunity to re-make you.

In Jesus' name.