Eric L. Walker

We don’t often think about how love gets tested. Not with neat questions and answers, but in harder ways.

A sister’s doubt. A friend’s warning. A memory of being let down before.

Each one presses into the present like a sharp mirror we didn’t ask to hold.

These are the not-so-neat tests of love I’m talking about.

They can feel heavy. But this is the real work of love. That being not to run from suspicion, not to close down, but to stand steady in the middle of it. To keep showing up in a way that lets actions line up with words.

Ultimately, I think it comes down to our trust in God. I have prayed so many times over the last couple of months,
“God, I give this to You. I hand it over to You. You’re in charge. Your will, not mine.”

For years, I thought the safe way was to harden. Build walls. I didn’t name it that way at the time, but in hindsight, that’s exactly what I was doing.

I was compartmentalizing my life so I could stay in control. It kept me safe. It kept me loving my children in a way that no one could touch. I wasn’t going to let the world bruise me twice.

Then I fell in love. I lost that love. And now I am regaining it.

Somewhere in that circle, I realized that a soft heart is stronger than a hard one. It listens. It bends without breaking. It stays open when retreat would be easier.

Except, in my breaking open and becoming whole, in my great softening, retreating wasn’t easier.

Did I ever lose that love? Yes and no.

I see now that love doesn’t move in a straight line.

It circles back. It pulls old stories into the present. It tests our patience and asks if we mean what we say.

And through it all, it keeps moving as one continuous current.

For me and Lady, that current has been an undertow, carrying us to where we were always meant to be.

We don’t always get to draw the map. Yet we do choose how we travel.

I now choose to be soft, open, willing to let trust take root. Time is on my side.

Now that some time has passed, I can see what was true all along. That every turn, every test, every warning was leading us here. Exactly as we had always planned it, even when we didn’t know how the plan would unfold.

Love’s not a straight line we draw. It’s a current we learn to trust. And for me and Lady, every turn has only been a way of leading us home.

I have stopped setting goals to achieve something. I set goals to become someone. I want the change that comes with the goal more than the reward of accomplishment. The burning desire lives in the transformation itself. The process of becoming is the reward. And that transformation reaches deeper than the savings goal, the new income streams or any material milestone ever could.

I went to prayer and worship at the downtown church today, as I have most Wednesdays these past few weeks.

In the middle of the week it feels like an antidote, a way to steady myself in God.

There is something powerful in lifting a song of praise and gratitude, in offering my voice as thanks for the life I’ve been given.

When we sang Solid Ground, I felt security rise in me. Confidence followed, along with a joy that lets me rest from the weight I carry as a human being, as a father, as a provider, and as someone meeting challenges that demand patience and consistency.

For a moment, I can relax. Like actual mind-is-on-nothing-but-God deep rest.

In this hour, the ground beneath me feels affirmed.

I think, whatever comes, I will be okay, because I have this place, this presence, and I have already been accepted into it.

That moves me. My eyes water as I sit in that presence.

I sang to the heavens, offered praise and gratitude for everything I have. I prayed. I spoke to God. I thanked Jesus in all of my imperfection.

I felt heard.

And I felt it build something inside me that I am only beginning to understand.

The more I lean in, the more I feel God’s restorative hand and the steady ground He provides.

It’s a real thing.

It’s as if He is showing me how to give myself over.

It doesn’t arrive in a single surge. Today it felt like breath filling my lungs, slow and steady, enough to sustain me.

Just as exercise strengthens me in its own way – resistance training, sprints, pushups and chinups in the living room. That builds my body.

But today I found that singing, raising my voice toward heaven and feeling it, builds something else. It is strength with depth.

Solid ground. Strength that steadies beneath me.

Strength that reminds me I am not alone.

Thank you Jesus, thank you Lord.

Amen.

Listening to Dave Ramsey yesterday, he said,

“I met God on the way up, but I got to know Him on the way down.”

He was talking about making millions and then losing it all, and when I heard those words, they stayed with me.

I nodded and thought, Yes. I know that path.

I remember when I first met God.

By then I already believed the Bible was truth and that a relationship with Jesus was the way I wanted to walk.

But belief and knowing are not the same.

One Saturday night, a friend who had been unfaithful to his wife stayed at my house to talk. He was covered in a darkness I could not name, and the next morning I fled. My phone was dead. My gas tank was empty.

Still, I found myself driving, past reason, until I pulled into a church I had only heard about from another believer. I had never been there before. Somehow I made it, running on fumes and without directions, and God met me in that place.

Life felt like an ascent after that.

Soon after, I met and fell in love with Lady.

We read the Bible together. We went to church often. God was at the center of our life. I even sat with the pastor a few times. Step by step, I kept meeting God.

Yet it wasn’t until Lady and I broke apart that I began to know Him.

Heartbreak has a way of undoing you.

I was emptied out, unable to hold myself together. Every attempt to gather my pieces left me with nothing but fragments slipping through my hands.

In that collapse, I discovered a deeper truth. God wasn’t simply someone I wanted in my life. He was the One I could not live without.

I always knew that I liked to write, and I’ve been doing it for a long time in a kind of public journal – writing in the spirit of myself, trying to capture things I almost know but can’t quite explain.

But after this season of life, I find I can’t stop writing about God.

He is always with me, shaping every reflection that rises to the surface. What I write now comes out of lived experience, and I know these words might serve men who, like me, are navigating difficult seasons of their own.

Maybe this is my current prompting. A nudge from God to keep going in this direction.

Since then, I have learned to lean into Him not only in strength but in the ache of weakness. I see now that His promise is the one ground that does not shift beneath me. To trust Him is to walk with a steadiness nothing else can give.

Life still cuts. Disappointment arrives without warning. Plans unravel just when you hope they will hold.

Yet when I entrust those moments to God, I find a different rhythm. My days open with a quiet harmony, one that does not depend on whether life feels fair or unfair, easy or hard. Full of regret or high on gratitude.

I think this is what Ramsey meant. On the way up, we recognize God. On the way down, we learn who He is. And in that knowing, we find a life that no longer needs to look back.

Replace the word “fail” with the word “live.”

When I fear failure, when regret pulls at me, when I close off because I don’t want to be hurt, when I play it safe instead of stepping forward…

I am really naming something deeper.

When I look at the surface explanation, what’s truly being named is the fear of life itself. Because life inevitably includes risk, uncertainty, disappointment, and pain.

Scripture bears witness to this. It is the story of mankind.

So I’ve been taking out the word fail and replacing it with the word live.

“I’m afraid to fail” becomes “I’m afraid to live.”

I don’t ever want to be afraid to live. No way.

That shift is enough to stop me in my tracks. It tells me what I already know. Life is never lived from the safety of avoidance.

To live is to be touched by failure. To live is to be stretched, to stumble, to rise again.

Failure has never been the end of my story. More often, it is the beginning.

Failure is a texture of being alive.

Failure is the shape of a path I can only see once I’ve walked it.

So the question is never how to avoid failure. The question is how deeply am I willing to live.

This doesn’t mean I’m not afraid. I have fears and many insecurities, especially in the unknown. But in the name of Jesus, to live is to die to myself, so that I may rise to new life in Him.

I’m trying! In all the things I do.

Some mornings it feels like my heart still has its own agenda.

I make the coffee anyway.

My chest tightens when I fear life and love is moving forward without me.

For a while there, that feeling ran the show. Which isn’t abnormal, but now…

Now I’m learning to step outside it. I feel it, but it doesn’t define me. When it hits, I do simple things.

Grind the beans.

Heat the water.

Watch the steam rise.

This is a metaphor, of course.

I don’t own the morning or the ritual, but I can show up to what’s in front of me.

That rhythm steadies me.

Life and forgiveness are gifts. They aren’t earned. They’re given.

The small daily work of praying, showing up, and doing all the things we call “living” isn’t about proving anything.

It’s my way of answering love that’s already here.

Thank you Jesus

Grace doesn’t push or demand. It just reminds me I’m already accepted.

Already loved.

From there, I want to grow. It’s a natural byproduct.

Paul said everything else is loss compared to knowing Christ.

The treasure isn’t outcomes or blessings. It’s Him.

So it’s in these heart squeeze mornings that I simply make the coffee.

Not to fix the past.

Not to chase love.

But because love is already here.

Even when the ache lingers, this simple idea brings me back to what matters.

And that is being known by Christ

At the kitchen table, I begin to write.

What comes first is a tangle of wild words. They flicker and tease, and wait to take shape.

My pen hovers over the page as if tracing what I almost know but cannot yet explain.

I keep writing.

The page becomes a place to follow small currents of meaning.

A fleeting insight.

A single moment.

Something I want to call precious.

To write is to sit in the quiet, listening.

Good practice for everything in my life.

The work is not to capture something grand, but to notice what shimmers at the edge of attention.

Like sitting with a friend over coffee, sharing the thought that has been tugging at my heart all along.

Writing turns the ordinary into a doorway.

It reminds me that each day holds something waiting to be named.

And once named, it no longer passes unnoticed.

What has stayed with me most is the sense of familiarity between us. From the very beginning we kept asking, have we known each other before?

There are moments in life when you meet someone and it feels less like an introduction and more like a remembering.

As if we were remembering rather than meeting.

The way your face felt familiar before my mind had words for it.

The way your eyes carried a blue that felt both near and endless, like something I had always known.

Even after silence, distance, and heartbreak, when we walked again together, it was still there.

The same recognition. The same ease.

That kind of knowing doesn’t come from us. I believe it belongs to God, and it’s something given to us.

Some gifts aren’t given to be understood. They are given to be followed.

And I will follow.

There was a time when most of my prayers were about what I wanted from God.

I would ask Him to bless my plans, to open the doors I wanted open, to fix the things I thought needed fixing. But the more I live into my Faith, the more I see how backwards that can be.

Prayer is not about bending God to my will. It is about bending my heart to His.

This prayer is different. It is not me asking God to give me what I want. It is me asking Him to show me what He wants. It is a prayer of surrender and guidance.

Rooted in Micah 6:8: “He has shown you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.”

Here is the prayer I have begun to pray each day:

Dear Heavenly Father,

Not my will, but Yours.
You have shown what is good: to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with You.
Shape me to live this out each day.

Open my eyes where I am blind.
Open my ears where I am deaf.
Sharpen my heart and mind to be tuned to Your Spirit.

Grant me wisdom, courage, and faith to walk the path You set for me.
I surrender to Your perfect will, trusting that You know best.
Let my life reflect Your love and truth, so others see You through me.

In Jesus’ name, Amen.

To my children: my prayer is that you also would seek God with open hearts. Do not just ask Him for what you want. Ask Him what He wants for you. Jesus loves you and will never turn you away. Let this prayer be a starting point, a daily reminder that God’s ways are higher, and His will is always for your good.

Love,
Dad

At first, I didn’t believe love could hold it all. The weight of children, past relationships, and divided loyalties seemed so much.

I was fearful. I thought it would undo us, and in a way, it did. My hesitation, my resistance, my fear… that was the majority of what broke us apart.

I carry a lament for that now. I see it more clearly than I ever did before.

The breaking opened me.

I came awake in the undoing.

In letting go, the hand of God steadied me. With that came a new vision of what family can be.

I have long known that my calling is to be a father. I know now that my longing is also to be a stepfather.

To step into the lives of children not my own, to love them as they are, to show them what it means for their mother to be cherished. That love would teach them as surely as any words.

I did not always know this. Now it is obvious to me.

My own family roots are scattered, fragile. Parents distant, sisters drifting, gatherings rare. There is no hearth that calls me back.

The emptiness left by that has shown me how much I yearn for connection that holds.

I have learned strength from my own children. I have walked with them through seasons, moods, and storms. I have learned how to listen, how to steady the pillar they lean on. I am a great Dad, a proud Dad with many wins.

That is the strength I would bring into another family. I would be living proof that love grows through presence.

When I picture the future now, I see a table full of voices, blended families gathered together, laughter rising like a hymn.

I see loss giving way to wholeness. What was once a broken family is not erased, but woven into something larger. Something strong enough to carry us.

This is my awakening: that love can, in fact, expand wide enough to hold it all.

I pray that I get this opportunity. And so it will be. Amen.

This is a season of the heart.

Pain and grief arrive each day, carrying their own weight, reshaping the hours, shaping me.

I am in it fully.

That’s what it feels like, but that doesn’t mean that’s what it is. It’s NOT a bad thing. It’s a necessary thing.

The longer I walk through it, the more I know there is no “getting over it.”

What is happening is change. What is happening is revelation – of who I have been, who I am, and how I belong to God and to the wider human family.

And most notably, how I relationship with another in love.

To be broken open is also to be made whole. All of my contents have spilled out.

For much of my adult life, especially since being a single Father with 50% custody (and 100% Dad), fear has held me back.

I clung when it was time to release. I drifted into sleep when I was being asked to wake.

Then real, authentic love broke me open.

Beautiful. Messy. A beautiful mess.

Now I find myself ready. More loving, more willing to be loved. My heart has stretched and grown.

Every crack is now an opening where life pours in. Not something I seal over.

Because of that, I have not been trapped by grievances. There are none. Nobody has hurt me. Lady is not responsible for this breaking open.

It just had to be this way.

And so I have leaned into the tender place.

Thankfully, each of my steps have landed, as they always have. I’m on my own two feet. In that, another layer of resilience has formed.

A Japanese proverb has stayed with me: “fall down seven times, stand up eight.”

I recognize a rhythm in this.

Falling, rising.
Emptying, filling.
Losing, finding.

This rhythm is the essence of life.

This is what being broken open is to me.

Remade. Transformed.
Standing. Strong.
Grateful. Walking with God.

She wanted someone who was ready, and I thought I was that person. I thought I was ready for what she wanted – marriage without any hesitation.

But one more hurdle rose before me as the story of us was still being written.

What you don’t know waits until it rises, and life has a way of showing you exactly what you haven’t seen.

Especially after you think you’ve seen it all. Especially when you think you know it all.

I stand humbled once again.

She longed for wholeness, for someone who could restore what had been broken in her life, and she wanted it fast enough to ease her pain and return to what felt predictable. I didn’t fully see that at the time.

Our love revealed the truth of me. I’m grateful for how true it was, and I dare say still is.

That is the most beautiful part. I wouldn’t be writing this now if it weren’t.

This is a love story in progress.

In the end, the pieces I carried could no longer stay hidden. Love pressed them to the surface, and they broke me open, spilling into the light for me to see.

What a mess!

In that breaking, I discovered something unexpected. And that is my broken open rawness has felt more whole than anything I once tried to hold together.

Now, Lady is the one gathering her own fragments. We have traded places. Where I was once compartmentalized, she now stands with pieces in her hands, ready to arrange.

When we talked yesterday, my heart shifted. I heard her voice, and instantly stopped listening for what I wanted to hear. I listened for what she needed. It was obvious.

That is what love has made of me.

Step by step, I can walk beside her as a friend, whether she returns to our love or not.

And if she doesn’t, I have still learned to live with this kind of honesty in myself, an honesty that asks for nothing in return.

Thank you, Jesus. Praise God.

There is a quiet strength in this refining. What once felt like failure now feels like life shaping me into someone fully present. Finally capable and ready to love for life.

No hesitation.

I have always said I would fight for the one who loves me, but I will not fight for the woman I love.

Yesterday, when Lady and I talked and walked, I recognized that she may indeed still love me. She didn’t say it, but I heard it. I felt it in the distance behind her closed heart.

And I know that I love her.

Where I go from here is to keep walking, one step at a time, trusting God with each step, because she is worth every moment.

And maybe, just maybe, it takes falling apart to fall back together.