Monthly Archives: October 2025

It’s 6 p.m. and I’m not doing anything. No practices, no appointments, no one asking for anything. I’ve been up since five this morning getting ready for the day and kids off to school, and work, and, and, and… but now the house is still. I might holler for my youngest just to hold her close. It’s been weeks since I’ve let myself slow down. Lately, resting is the work, and I haven’t gotten much of it in.

I spent the morning with my mom at an assessment for in-home care. She’s 72 and struggling in every way – body, mind, and spirit.

I love her deeply, but she’s hard to help. Pride and repressed pain make her resist the support she needs.

Still, a seed was planted today. I’ll take that as a win. At least now she knows another option exists. Maybe this is the slow jog at the start of something better.

I’ve reached the part of life where I’m helping care for the one who once cared for me. That’s wild to me. That’s new to me.

I’m learning that fatherhood – which isn’t new to me – and being a son at 49 with a parent who needs care and occasional intervention aren’t so different. Both ask for my continued patience. Both ask for my continued humility. Both ask that my love endure.

And quitting will never be an option.

A few years ago, I made a promise to myself.

The next woman I dated would have to be marriage material or I wouldn’t date at all.

No more chasing lust. No more relationships built on temporary desire.

Back in 2017, I wrote a list of the qualities I wanted in a woman.

A few months before I met my soon to be bride, I updated the list, and added this caveat:
If I ever marry, I want to be baptized first.

For me, baptism isn’t just symbolic, or a public declaration of my internal faith, it’s also a reset. It washes away the past, specifically with other women, the mistakes, the selfishness, the patterns that kept me stuck.

This Sunday, I’ll make that public declaration.

A fresh start in love, and life.

I’m in a season of change. I’m humbled and grateful.

This Sunday, I’ll be baptized. Soon, I’ll propose. A new house is closing in a few weeks. The church is booked for January.

Everything is being rebuilt from the ground up. Faith, family, purpose. Yet, in reflection, all of this has been in the works for years.

Over the next few months, I’ll be using this space to document the process of starting anew. My goal is to stay grounded while I grow.

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.