My Story
Where I Start
I’m a missionary kid who learned at seven that the world isn’t safe and God doesn’t always show up on Mondays — and I’ve spent fifty years choosing faith anyway, which turns out to be the only thing I have worth saying.
The essays on this site are how I keep telling it.
Childhood
At seven, on a First Nations reservation where my parents were church planters, I was violently assaulted on the schoolyard. I walked a mile home alone and in agony. Being good and smart did not protect me. The world was not safe.
Walking to that same school, I watched older boys stone a dog struggling in the water. I was terrified I was next. That Sunday my father had preached about God’s love. A question formed that has never fully left: where is the Jesus of Sunday mornings when Monday is cruel?
Those stories are not resolved. You can read them in The Playground and The Dog in the Lake.
Fatherhood
Years later, as a father, I knelt on a hard ceramic floor in Tennessee after learning my own child had suffered abuse from someone close to the family. I had spent my life vowing my children would never suffer what I suffered. I was not in control. The project of self-protection was an illusion. That night is in The Ceramic Floor.
The Verse That Stopped Me
For two decades I chased achievement — smartest in the room, best-paid — to prove that kid in the mud actually mattered. Then Revelation 12:11 stopped me: “They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony.”
The blood of the Lamb is God’s work, already accomplished. The word of my testimony is my work — an honest retelling of the story I’ve lived. Achievement cannot redeem a wound. Only testimony can. That turning is in The Weight I Couldn’t Carry.
Still Here
The wound isn’t healed. It’s held. A neighbor’s dog at 4AM, a daughter’s first car, the arithmetic of a fallen world where no one can afford to trust and I can’t stop wanting them to. Trust at 4AM is current testimony, not a victory lap.
Writing and Work
I’ve wanted to tell stories since I was five, crouched over my father’s ancient manual typewriter. For a long time I learned to code instead. I still build software; it provides for my family and keeps me in the ordinary pressures most people face. It is provision, not calling.
The calling is simpler: tell the truth about what faith looks like lived through my particular life. Including the struggle. Including the doubt. Including the moments of grace that break through weariness.
I write primarily for myself and God — a way of staying honest. If my story resonates with yours, you’re welcome here. This isn’t about building a following.