Wow. This page is a snapshot of what my life used to be in many ways.
It's been four years since I've posted here. I've had something on my heart that I wanted to share, but life has been so hard over the past eight months, and I've experienced so much loss, that I simply haven't had the strength to post a video or livestream on social media. Since this blog still exists, this is where I'll share those thoughts.
Halloween is coming up. It's only four days away. This time of year used to be such a fun season to look forward to. There'd be pumpkin patches, corn mazes, trunk-or-treats, pumpkin carving and, of course, trick-or-treating itself. Since 2020, however, Halloween has taken on a much different tenor. I'm not going to belabor the point, but that was when my first wife sent me a text demanding a divorce while I was eagerly awaiting her to come join me when I had taken a ministry position 1,500 miles from home.
So, yeah, this season brings with it a heaviness that I never experienced before.
I got remarried in May 2025 to an incredible woman named Melinda, and we attempted to blend four of her kids with my two, making a household of eight! Long story short, by February 2026, I had lost my job as pastor of a local church, we'd lost the opportunity to buy a home and had to find somewhere else to live because our rental was being sold, my ex-wife filed a motion to change our custody agreement (wanting our two kids the majority of the time even though we'd been 50-50 for more than five years!), my mother and I became estranged due to the custody dispute, and we moved into another house that had so many problems we never even unpacked before finally moving again four months later.
Inhale.
Then, a mere two weeks after moving into a much newer and nicer home, Melinda and her kids left. It had all been too much. Blending a family of eight was hard enough. Add in all the other issues, and she needed to retreat back to family, emotional safety, and predictability.
Melinda had always thought that if she left, my ex would drop the custody dispute. She didn't. So, in the matter of a month, I went from a household of eight, to a household of three, to now seeing my kids every other weekend and being alone the vast majority of the time. And, on top of that, we're still under a lease for a home intended to accommodate eight people, but now there's only one income to pay for it. That's brought even more financial stress.
Melinda leaving also had ramifications for my ministry career. When I was hired at Open Door Church in Edenton, I believed I would be considered for the Campus Pastor position at the new campus opening in Elizabeth City in January, where I'm fairly well connected. With Melinda leaving and the possibility of becoming a twice-divorced pastor, I understood that stepping into such a visible pastoral leadership role would be complicated, especially with the possibility of another divorce. Ultimately, someone else was chosen for the position, and I believe my circumstances played a significant part in that. That's no shade on Open Door. I completely understand.
I feel like, as of now, I'm quite rudderless. Everything is in flux while I'm stuck at the same time.
It's with all of that on my heart that I share this word with you; a newer and deeper understanding of Psalm 23, which reads (in the New King James Version):
The Lord is my shepherd;I shall not want.
He leads me beside the still waters.
He restores my soul;
He leads me in the paths of righteousness
For His name’s sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil;
For You are with me;
Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
You anoint my head with oil;
My cup runs over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
All the days of my life;
And I will dwell in the house of the Lord
Forever.
Just last weekend, Melinda was visiting, and we took my daughter (Ava, 13) and a friend to a corn maze and haunted trail. You can take me to any haunted house, Heaven's Gates & Hell's Flames production, Hallowscream, etc., and I'll have no issue because I walk in KNOWING that it's all a mirage. The actors aren't going to touch me, and the chainsaws and knives aren't real. Regardless of what I see and experience, I can tell myself beyond a SHADOW of a doubt that I'm safe.
Are you able to do that? Other than the occasional loud noise or an actor popping out around a corner, I'm not even going to be startled. It's not a superpower. It's just rational.
My question is (and it's something I've been asking myself repeatedly during this season of my life): Why can't I replicate that kind of faith in my own spiritual walk?
God's Word in Psalm 23:4 says, "...though I walk through the valley of the SHADOW of death, I will fear no evil; For You are with me. Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me."
From Halloween 2020 through the spring of 2021, I walked through a long, dark valley, but God walked through it with me.
Yet that season doesn't seem to compare to the sheer amount of loss I've experienced since February of this year (2026). I've lost my job, lost financial independence, lost the chance to buy a home, lost a close relationship with my parents, ultimately lost stability in my marriage and, just recently, lost a substantial amount of time with my kids.
It's a valley that's been really long. It hasn't felt like a SHADOW, but more like a thick canopy that has blocked out almost every trace of light in my life.
Rather than immediately questioning God or blaming Him for my circumstances, my first inclination is to do some honest self-evaluation. What have I done to cause all of this? Have I made a series of terrible choices that brought me to where I am today? Or am I (to a much smaller degree) more like Job or Joseph, who endured one devastating circumstance after another before God redeemed their situations?
I even wrote a song chronicling these thoughts called "Damaged or Dangerous."
I digress.
Psalm 23:4 reminds us that no matter how dark the season we're walking through, the darkness doesn't have the final word. What is a shadow? It's not a physical thing. It's the absence of light, and while it can obscure what's around us, the darkness itself cannot reach out and hurt us. Does it produce more challenges? Of course! I can walk through my entire house in almost complete darkness by memory and feeling around. I may have to move more carefully, but I can still find my way. I just have to rely on what I know and trust my other senses.
In 2020–21, I did that. I leaned on an underutilized aspect of my faith: prayer. I learned a few things during that season:
There is no straight path to healing.
There is no "perfect way" to grieve.
There is no wrong way to pray.
I leaned HEAVY on that last truth. I spent hours and hours walking my neighborhood, pacing in dark rooms, and just lying on the floor offering prayers filled with disbelief, anger, and despair through sobs and blurred vision. Again, I was 1,500 miles away from family and most of my friends. I was alone in the natural, trying desperately not to show my daughter (who was seven at the time) that I was emotionally demolished.
But God walked me through that dark valley.
I need to clarify something really important here: Jesus doesn't walk with us through our pain unscathed. The Bible tells us that Jesus wept when He saw others grieving (John 11:35). Think about that! Jesus knew He was about to raise Lazarus from the dead, yet He still wept alongside those who were mourning. The Lord knows what's on the other side of your valley, but that doesn't make Him any less compassionate about what you're experiencing in it.
I promise you, He's not some cheerleading pace car demanding that you keep up. He doesn't stand at the other end of the valley shouting for you to hurry up and get there. He kneels beside you and weeps with you every time you crumple under the weight of it all.
Our God understands.
Although the valley I'm in today is unique in its darkness and despair, the fact that I'm surrounded by SHADOWS are no different! Don't misunderstand me. The things that brought me into this valley were real. The losses were real. The pain was real. The SHADOW is what those experiences have cast over my life. And although I can't undo what's happened, I don't have to remain trapped beneath the darkness those experiences have left behind. I just have to...keep...moving, keep following the Lord through it, which, I'll be the first to admit, I'm finding incredibly difficult to do.
I can't stay here, even if I wanted to, and trust me, wallowing in it is tempting. Screaming deep within my soul, "WHY IS THIS HAPPENING TO ME?" may bring some temporary release, but it will never bring healing. So what happens when you're stuck there? When you don't even have the inspiration to keep moving forward?
The second half of Psalm 23:4 tells us exactly that. "Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me."
There's something remarkable about God likening Himself to a shepherd. In Ancient Near Eastern culture, shepherding was physically demanding, often thankless work. It's not a perfect comparison, but think of someone working a difficult, blue-collar job today. Yet, the image of a shepherd was also used to describe kings and rulers, representing their responsibility to protect, provide for, and lead their people. I find it fascinating that the God of the universe embraces both images! He doesn't simply rule from a throne. He walks with His sheep, cares for them, and protects them. Jesus even calls Himself the Good Shepherd in John 10:11!
And to make the symbolism work even better, Scripture says in Isaiah 53:6 that we (humanity) are like sheep that have gone astray. But in the context of a valley of darkness, how does a shepherd lead his sheep? With a rod and a staff.
Circumstances sometimes require a rod, sometimes a staff.
What's the difference?
A rod was something similar to a short, heavy wooden club. It was a weapon a shepherd could use to defend his sheep against predators. Imagine a shepherd carrying that club, ready to swing it at anything that threatened his flock. That's how I picture God's protection. Even as we're walking through the pain of circumstances that have already wounded us, I believe God is constantly beating back spiritual attacks and dangers we may never even recognize. His protection doesn't mean nothing can hurt us. The valley I'm walking through is proof of that! But it does mean we're not facing the enemy alone. He is our protector, not just our chaperone.
The rod defends.
So what about the staff? This is probably the object you think of when you imagine what a shepherd carries: that long stick, sometimes with a crook at the end.
While the rod was primarily used for protection, the staff helped the shepherd guide his sheep and bring them back toward safety. A shepherd could use the straight end of the staff to gently prod a sheep in the direction it needed to go.
Sheep are prone to eat their preferred greens faster than they can regenerate and, without being led to fresh pastures (see verses 2 and 3) and clean water, they can eventually become malnourished. That is so striking once you extrapolate it to the human experience. When we're paralyzed by grief or depression, we can find ourselves stuck in a place that no longer sustains us. And sometimes we need divine intervention to help us begin moving again.
That intervention doesn't have to be some grand theophany. It might be God sending a friend, a family member, a timely sermon you hear at church, the community of a small group, or even something as simple as a worship song. Even a little bit of movement, a tiny bit of progression, can help us begin healing. Even the willingness to write this blog post, to share my story, is a sign of progression and a desire to move toward healing.
But sometimes the staff serves another purpose. A shepherd could use its curved end to help redirect a sheep that had wandered into danger. Imagine a sheep grazing a little too close to the edge of a cliff, wandering toward a venomous snake, or simply straying from the flock. The shepherd can use his staff to pull it back toward safety.
Being yanked by the neck might not be particularly pleasant for the sheep. After all, the sheep doesn't necessarily understand the danger it's in. But what might feel like an unwelcome interruption could actually be the very thing that saves its life.
The rod defends. The staff directs.
And sometimes, the crook of the staff is a blessing.
When we're at our lowest, many of us reach for something to numb the pain, and I'm no different. Some choose absolute isolation, some choose food (or, specifically, poor food choices), some choose a substance, whether it be alcohol or drugs, some choose porn. We just want something that gives us a little relief, a little pleasure, some semblance of control over a life that feels completely out of control.
It's at that point that God employs the staff. Now, do I wish that God would literally nab me by the neck, whisking me away from what He knows would hurt me? Absolutely! Does it happen that way? Of course not. Well, not if you're like me.
There's an old saying that hurt people hurt people. But sometimes, the people we're hurting most are ourselves, over and over and over again. Christ-followers know this sequence all too well. We find ourselves down, we reach for our vice, and we get a temporary respite, only to feel worse because the thing we reached for to find peace wasn't capable of providing it. It's faux peace. And sometimes, the very thing we use to numb our pain ends up creating even more of it.
Imagine lying in a hospital bed after suffering a terrible injury. You're already wounded, already hurting, and desperately wanting the pain to stop. The injury may not have been your fault at all. Maybe someone else caused it. Maybe it was an accident. Regardless, you're lying there, injured and in need of healing.
Now imagine that God, the Great Physician, is standing beside your bed, already working toward your recovery. He knows what's wrong, He knows what you need, and He's prepared to walk with you through the healing process.
Here's the problem: healing takes time. It requires patience, trust, and sometimes enduring discomfort along the way. And we don't always like that. So imagine the Physician handing you the medication you need, but when He turns around, you spit the pills into your hand and toss them away. Why? Because you've convinced yourself that you know a quicker, easier way to feel better.
Instead, you reach for a syringe filled with a powerful painkiller. You inject yourself, and within moments, the pain begins to disappear. The relief is incredible! For the first time since your injury, you feel like you can breathe again.
But there's a problem. Your bones are still broken. Your wounds are still open. And rather than allowing the Physician to treat the actual injuries, you've decided that numbing the pain is good enough. So you keep reaching for that syringe, again and again, while the injuries that brought you into the hospital remain untreated and may even grow worse.
But what have you accomplished? You haven't healed the original injury. You've simply found a way to escape the pain temporarily, while potentially introducing an entirely new problem into your life.
You've found a shortcut around the pain, not a path toward healing.
You weren't necessarily responsible for the wound that put you in the hospital bed. But now you're making choices that could make your suffering even worse.
And isn't that what some of us do spiritually? We're hurting, and God is inviting us into a process of healing, but we want something quicker. Something easier. Something we can control. And when that temporary relief wears off, we're left with the original wound and sometimes a new one we've inflicted upon ourselves.
Philip Yancey, in his book Where Is God When It Hurts?, explores something so simple yet so profound: pain can actually be a blessing because it alerts us when something is wrong.
Before you scoff at the simplicity, let me enlighten you to the profound.
Of course, if we stub our toe, we feel pain and know that hitting that table leg was the problem. But what about when someone betrays you? You experience that deep feeling of rejection, anger, and sadness. Those emotions, that pain, tell us that something is wrong. We've been wounded.
Now consider what happens when we reach for something destructive to numb that original pain. When the temporary relief wears off and we're left feeling even worse, that compounded pain may be telling us something important.
Not only was there something wrong to begin with, but what we chose to band-aid that pain may have caused even more damage.
Sometimes the pain that follows our attempts to numb the original wound is a warning that our chosen remedy is causing additional harm.
That doesn't mean every painful emotion is evidence that we've done something wrong. Grief is not a sin. Depression is not a moral failure. Sometimes we're simply hurting because something terrible happened to us. But when we find ourselves in a downward cycle, repeatedly reaching for something that leaves us worse off than before, perhaps that additional pain is trying to tell us something.
Like the crook of the shepherd's staff pulling a sheep away from danger, that discomfort can become an invitation to choose a different path. To stop reaching for what keeps hurting us and begin allowing the Great Physician to tend to the wounds we already carry.
And here's the beautiful thing: God is gracious.
He knows what it's like to be human. He understands our weakness, our pain, and our desperation for relief. He doesn't abandon us because we've failed, even when we've failed repeatedly, hurt ourselves, or hurt others. His grace doesn't mean our choices are without consequences, but it does mean our failures don't have to be the end of our story.
You truly have to believe that.
God's grace is scandalous.
Take a step toward God. Follow Him. Choose community. Choose counseling. Choose sobriety. Choose abstinence. Choose moderation where it's appropriate. Even if you take those steps inconsistently, take them. And when you stumble, take another.
With each step, perhaps that tiny light in the distance will grow brighter until we can see sunlight breaking through the canopy.
I'm preaching to myself here, but at the same time, I pray that something I've shared will give you some hope.
Remember, no matter where you are, God is there. But let's face it: we're sheep. We're prone to wander. Sometimes we become so preoccupied with what's happening around us, so determined to manage everything ourselves, that we inadvertently stray from the very One we're supposed to be following. And often, we don't recognize just how far we've wandered until the bottom falls out.
Other times, the darkness is simply so overwhelming that we struggle to recognize His presence at all.
Either way, the Shepherd hasn't abandoned us.
Look up. Stop focusing on the trash in the dirt. And if you've wandered away, turn around! The Bible calls that repentance. Choose to follow instead of trying to control everything yourself.
And don't try to control your words, your feelings, your grief, or your emotions around God. Release THEM ALL in prayer. Bring Him your anger, your disappointment, your confusion, your doubts. There's no wrong way to pray. You don't have to make your suffering sound pretty. God knows what you want to say even when the words aren't even uttered. He knows you, so you might as well let it out.
You can move through this valley. The SHADOWS don't get the final say.
The wounds that cast these shadows were real, but the shadows don't have to define what comes next.
We don't have to keep making that pain worse by reaching for things that only offer temporary relief.
Take one step toward God. Away from the vices, away from the things that compound the pain, and toward the Shepherd who's already reaching for you with His staff. Take hold of the crook and let Him pull you up to your feet, away from the immediate danger you're in. And even when we can't see it, I believe He's wielding His rod to beat back spiritual dangers we may never fully understand.
You are loved. You are not alone. And no matter how frightening this valley may be, you are never beyond the bounds of God's protection and care. Nothing can separate those who belong to Christ from His love (Romans 8:38–39).
The Shepherd is with you. The Great Physician hasn't left your bedside.
Take a step today.
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