Monthly Archives: September 2025

It’s official. I’m now a member of the church.

On paper, it may look like a small step. In my heart, it feels like a big one.

Yesterday I sat with the pastor for 45 minutes, and in that conversation I felt something stir. Like roots finding soil.

I’ve already fulfilled the two-hour class, completed the application packet, and now I’m signed up to help set up for an event this Sunday morning. It feels good to begin lending a hand. Simple things.

There are many ways I can grow here. Through prayer groups. Through mentorship. Through serving. Through community. Through giving. Truth is, being part of a church family is not only something I want. It is something I need in this season of life. This feels right.

One of the ways we spoke about growth was through tithing. Scripture speaks of 10 percent. To be honest, I had some concern here.

The pastor did not pressure me. He spoke instead of trust. Trusting the Lord to provide, but also growing in that trust.

I gave him a number I felt I could commit to each month. He asked me to think of it not only as a dollar amount but as a percentage of my income. That way, part of my faith journey could be learning to increase it over time.

I am starting at 2 percent. That is okay. I have room to grow.

I will begin as a greeter via the Welcome Team, and I am genuinely excited for it. To stand at the door, smile, look people in the eye, and welcome hundreds as they enter.

It feels like holy work. The kind of work that requires the thing I can give best, simply my presence.

Beyond that, I see opportunities to serve with the skills I already carry. Digital media. Communication. Even a part-time ministry program seems to be opening as a possibility.

And here is the part that amazes me. This journey started with me as a janitor, scrubbing toilets and mopping floors in this same building.

Looking back, it does not feel accidental. It feels like God’s handwriting. As if He knew the arc before I even saw the line.

There is this sentiment from the poet, Mark Nepo. “The flower does not dream of the bee. It blossoms, and the bee comes.”

Maybe that is what is happening. Maybe my work is to keep saying yes. To blossom where I am. To trust God to send what comes next.

Trust is definitely growing.

I began with a small promise. Thirty days without smoking. I kept it.

That promise grew into something greater. A decision to smoke only a handful of times each year. Once in each season. A rhythm of restraint.

In that discipline, another door opened. It was not that I had never accepted the Lord. It was that I finally understood how much I needed Him. I leaned into Him fully. I could not find a path forward without Him.

Yet in that surrender I also felt my aloneness. Not alone in spirit because God is with me, but alone as a man walking the earth without a woman by my side. I had never felt that longing so clearly before.

It has been during this heartbreak that I’ve realized what I wanted. To have a woman to share the days with.

The image returned to me of creation itself. How God took a rib from the side of man, and from it made woman, so that she would walk beside him. In that mystery I saw my own desire. To honor God not only in solitude but in companionship. To walk with a wife. To share life. To glorify Him together.

As mentioned, this realization arrived as a result of not wanting to lose someone that I love.

After asking God why, and feeling the fire of loss, I have felt His hand press and reshape me. It hurts. I cannot see what is ahead. Yet I remain committed.

I believe this is a time of preparation. My prayers remain steady. My desires remain the same. This season is not for indulgence. It is for clarity. For strength.

The den of iniquity is what I must avoid. It offers only a counterfeit of what I truly long for. I do not want pleasure without covenant. I do not want comfort without truth. Better to walk the wilderness. Better to endure the desert of waiting than to settle for less than God’s design.

This is the expectation that I hold for myself. Sure, there will be temptations and tests before me. I will stay out of that place. I will choose sacrifice. I will choose the high road.

The high road is where honor lives. My future wife expects honorable. And this honor I will give to the Lord.

Two compliments in two days warmed my heart.

The first came from a 23 year old who lost his father this past year. We were working side by side cleaning churches when he said,

“You remind me of my dad, the way you work fast and smile at the same time. My dad was like that.”

His eyes glimmered as he spoke. Later, when the work was done, he shook my hand with a depth that felt like a Thank You.

The second came from an 80 something year old man I have known for decades. He owns the health food store where I once worked in the late 2000s. Every fall he stops by the greenhouse for mums. His presence is magnetic and he calls me by name.

He is known for reading numbers, for tracing meaning in birthdays and ages. People respect him for his wisdom and the depth he carries. I don’t put my faith in numbers, my trust is in the Lord, but I’ve always found it interesting what he sees.

When he walked in this time, I asked him to tell me what my numbers mean for the year ahead. He asked for my birthday and how old I’d be. Then he looked at me and asked, “Do you want a wife?”

“I do,” I said.

“Of course you do. You have a heart to lead a family.”

Then, in a gesture rare for him, he grabbed my hand and held tight.

He said, “It’s already laid out. You don’t know how this is laid out, but it is. Trust.”

He paused, then added, “Give it 16 months or so. Something will happen.”

“One more thing…” he said.

‘What?’ I asked, feeling excited and intrigued.

“Don’t be so damn stubborn! Stay soft.” And after he said it, he winked.

I just stood there, quietly stunned. His words landed.

I wanted to believe him. Of course I did. Not in “reading numbers,” but in the hope his words carried for me. He had no idea what my previous two months have looked like.

I don’t care how he arrived at his conclusions. My heart stirred.

Two voices, one from the young and one from the old. One saw a father, the other saw a husband leading a family. Together they reminded me of my calling.

To be a good man.

Perhaps that is how life speaks. We glimpse who we are becoming through the eyes of others. Sometimes before we can see it ourselves.

“The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.”
– Exodus 14:14
. . . . .

School mornings used to be mine. I packed the lunches, sorted the clothes, checked the backpacks, and decided when the day began. It was the work of three poured into one.

Now, just like poof, they do it all.

Lunches are packed without me. Clothes move from washer to dryer on their own rhythm. Backpacks are no longer my concern. I still hold to the small joy of waking them, a brief space of love and softness before the day hardens.

The pace is theirs to set. If they stumble, the consequences are theirs to meet. They call each other out when it is time to go. Not me.

What is left for me is simpler. One good breakfast, not the short-order menu it once was. A cup of coffee. A house in motion. Their footsteps and voices weave through the rooms while I sit still.

I recall Exodus 14, when God instructed the Israelites to be still at the edge of the sea. So it is with me. This season is about letting and holding still.

They are coming of age. What I once carried for them, they now carry for themselves.

And I, still learning how to let go, still learning how to live in the in-between, find myself in the tender space between memory and unfolding.

This is where I have come to be. I never saw it coming.

Early morning, I slipped into the cold waters of Lake Michigan. The shock woke every nerve. Each breath of mine had to be drawn deeper than was comfortable. Heartbreak clung as tightly as the chill. The mornings are often like this. Here on the shore of the great lake, there was no breeze, no ripple. In the stillness, I felt a small shift. The water didn’t erase the hurt, as I was hoping it might have, but it reminded me I could carry sorrow and still move forward. Because I know that I can swim and trust my body’s strength. Because I know that each deeply drawn breath of mine is me trusting life’s return. Walking back to dry sand, I asked: For how long must I swim in the cold? For how long must I draw deeper breaths than what are comfortable? I dripped clean, but not entirely free, just willing to begin again. The sun was coming up. I answered myself: As long as I must. Then dried off to dress for the day ahead.

“You’ll be okay, and that should be enough,” he emphasized.

His rationale made sense:

I am in a good place. Possibility stretches wider than I can imagine. So wide that thinking about what isn’t possible feels small, unnecessary.

I escaped from the city. Here at the cabin was welcome comfort.

The forest wrapping around me. The lake lapping at the shore. The breeze sifting through leaves. Firelight glowing.

A day of greens, browns and blues.

Night time arrived. I made my bed on the couch. My eyes grew heavy.

I heard it again: You’re going to be alright, Eric.

There are some moments when that suffices. I looked forward to praying in the morning.

I woke and swam in cold water. There was symbolism in it for me. Clean off the old, walk into the new.

I tried to see myself as he sees me, and others have claimed the same.  Yes, I am okay. Yes, possibility is endless. Yes, the only limits are the ones I shape.

Okay…yet…

Walking out of the water, a faint thread still stirred. Hope will not fully let go.

I live between the whisper and the gavel. The whisper of all the things to come and the gavel of what has closed, final, lost. 

Promise and ache. Clouds and dirt. 

For now, I acknowledge both.  Because someday when I’m not paying attention, I won’t shudder at the gavel’s final strike, or even hear the encouraging whispers.