Before reading this, you’ll want to start with Part 1 of my story, if you haven’t already. This post builds on a three-part series about my fall, confession, and the long road back. Without that context, this won’t make much sense. You can find Part 1 here.

My pastor invited me to join a discipleship group he was leading.

It was a small team of young men he was investing in. Guys he believed had the potential to become the next generation of church leadership. Pastors. Elders. Leaders in the making.

I had actually been part of the conversation years earlier when the idea first came up. I had brought my pastor a problem I kept seeing in the young adults ministry: we had more promising leaders than we had places to put them. He had the idea to start a discipleship team. I rattled off names of guys I thought belonged in it.

I never imagined my name would end up on that list.

But here I was. A former pastor sitting in a room full of men being trained to become what I used to be. The irony was not lost on me. The awkwardness was not lost on anyone in the group either.

To their credit, those guys were gracious. Most of them I had discipled myself or walked alongside in ministry. They knew me. They knew my story. They let me be in the room.

But the room had a strange gravity to it.

When discussions happened, people naturally paused and waited to hear what I had to say. I think it was habit more than anything else, they were used to it. Or maybe it was because they knew I had the experience. Either way, it felt strange. I was not supposed to be the voice in that room. I was supposed to be learning how to sit quietly and let God sort out the rest.

There was an unspoken reality everyone seemed to sense but no one said out loud: I was a pastor in a room full of pastor-trainees. I had already lived the thing they were preparing for. And I had burned it down.

In the beginning, I mostly endured the awkwardness. I stayed quiet more than I ever had in a room like that. I listened. I prayed. I tried to serve. And that was the best part of it; I was excited to serve again.

And slowly, over time, the group found its rhythm and I found my place inside it, smaller than before, but that’s what was appropriate at the time.

People say you have to learn to walk before you can run. But I was starting lower than that. I was learning how to crawl back to God. And crawling back to God was not dramatic.

I wish I could tell you there was a moment. A specific morning. A passage that cracked everything open. But it was not like that. It was plain. Inconsistent. Unglamorous.

It was picking up my Bible not because I had something to prepare or someone to help, but because I needed it. Reading a few verses and sitting with them. Praying without an agenda. Showing up to God with nothing to offer and no role to perform.

For someone who had spent years reading Scripture on behalf of everyone else, reading it for myself felt foreign. Like learning a language I used to speak fluently and had somehow forgotten.

I missed Him. And ever since He met me on the hill, I finally started rebuilding my relationship with Him. So I kept showing up. Imperfectly. Inconsistently.

And slowly, quietly, something began to return.

A hunger to serve. A desire to make an impact. A small fire.

That fire did not come back cleanly or easily. I wondered if the favor I once felt in ministry had lifted completely. Maybe it had. Maybe God was teaching me that walking again would not mean running ahead with every burden that burned in my chest.

Sometimes learning to walk looked like offering an idea and letting it die. Sometimes it looked like staying faithful when nothing moved. Sometimes it looked like accepting that the first place God wanted to rebuild ministry was not on a stage, not in a program, not even in a church room, but in me.

Then something happened that I did not see coming.

A young couple started attending our church. The woman was fairly new. Her boyfriend attended another church. They were thinking about marriage and looking for someone to help them navigate that.

They asked around. Our name came up.

I assumed that would end the conversation. Who in their right mind would seek out marriage counseling from a man with my history?

They would.

When they heard about us, about what had happened and what God had done on the other side of it, they were not scared off.

They were drawn in.

They told us something I have never forgotten: sometimes it is hard to relate to mentors who seem to have it all together.

We all struggle in different ways, we may simply never have seen that part of their story. But I get what they meant. If all we see is finished product, it can be difficult to imagine how our own mess could ever become something beautiful. There is something about walking with people who knows what it means to fail, to repent, to rebuild, and to keep following Jesus with a limp that gave people hope.

And us? Well, there was nothing finished about us. We had been through the fire.

We counseled that couple for about six months. Jess was pregnant with our third son during those months; life was moving forward whether we felt ready or not. We walked through the couple’s hard conversations, their fears, their disagreements, their hopes. We were honest with them about our story, and they were honest with us about theirs. It was real. It was good. It was the first time in years that Jess and I felt like what we had been through was being used for something beyond our own survival.

Then they got engaged.

And they asked me to officiate their wedding.

I was moved in a way I did not expect. A few years had passed since my fall, and Jess and I wondered if maybe it would be okay. To us, it felt like a lifetime had passed. That was a testament to the healing God had done in our marriage and how much He had rebuilt in that time. The distance between who I was then and who I was now felt vast.

Maybe, we thought, it was finally time.

So I went to my pastor.

He listened. He did not hesitate long. And then he said, gently but clearly:

It was not a punishment. I want to be clear about that. It came from love. He had a pulse on where the congregation was, what they were still carrying, and what the optics would mean, not just for the church, but for me. He was protecting us. He was protecting them. He was doing what a good shepherd does.

But it still hurt.

We grieved it together, him and me, right there in that conversation. He was not happy to say it. I was not happy to hear it. We both just sat with the weight of it.

I called the couple and told them I could not do it. That was also hard. They were gracious. They understood. I was still part of their wedding, they asked me to be a groomsman, and I was happy to do it.

But I would not be standing at the front.

A few months later, they held a bridal shower for close friends and family.

About an hour before it started, they pulled me aside and asked if I would be willing to lead a short discussion on marriage. Just ten minutes, maybe. Talk about the couple. Share a verse or two. Close in prayer. Nothing formal. Just something meaningful.

My instinct said yes before my brain could catch up. It was natural. Automatic. Like muscle memory from another life.

I grabbed my phone and started looking for verses. (Yes, my phone. I did not have my Bible in hand, which was painfully ironic considering how many times youth-pastor-me told students to bring their actual Bibles. I digress.)

And then the room started spinning.

It hit me all at once what I was about to do. Not a sermon. Not a stage. Just ten minutes in front of a small group of people who loved this couple.

But it would be the first time I had been asked to lead people spiritually in any public way since my fall.

I felt sweat on my palms. My heart was pounding. My stomach turned over.

Jess walked in and saw my face.

I told her I did not feel right. That something was wrong. I started to hyperventilate. I told her to buy me some time, that I thought I was going to be sick, and I ran to the bathroom.

I hunched over the toilet waiting for it, but all I felt was dizzy. I saw spots. My hands were clammy, and I could feel my knees buckling.

I pressed my back against the wall and slid down to the floor and tried to slow my breathing before I passed out. I couldn’t. I whispered to myself:

Why is this happening? Why am I feeling like this?

And then I knew.

It was the weight of responsibility. The reverence of handling God’s Word. The seriousness of standing in front of people and speaking about things that are holy. Even if it was only for ten minutes. Even if it was only in a living room. Even if it was only at a bridal shower.

I had been trusted with something sacred, and I had treated it carelessly. I had carried influence, leadership, and the privilege of pointing people to Jesus, and let it fall from my hands.

It was heavy. So I prayed.

Right there on that bathroom floor, I cried out to God and asked for forgiveness all over again. I thought about my pastor’s no. I thought about how right he had been. I thought about the weight of standing before people in any capacity and attempting to represent the Lord.

I did not feel eager to speak. I felt afraid to mishandle it again.

I took deep breathes and finally slowed my heart heart rate. I stood up, washed my face, and took a few more deep breaths.

I don’t know how long I was in there. Long enough that Jess came to check on me.

I walked out and straight into her arms.

I told her I didn’t think I could do it.

She looked at me and told me I was making it bigger than it was. She reminded me of who I was now. She reminded me of the forgiveness God had given me. She told me the people in that room would be blessed, that this moment was not about me, it was about that couple, and I had something real to offer them.

It was a sweet moment. Simple. Quiet. The couple was surrounded by people who loved them, and for ten minutes, I got to point all of it toward Jesus.

Nobody knew what had just happened in that bathroom, other than Jess and God.

And I understood something standing there that I had not fully understood before: I was walking again. But I was not walking the way I used to. The stride was different. The confidence was gone. Every step required intention in a way it never had before.

I was moving.

But I was limping.

Next time: The poem I wrote about exactly that. “The Limping Lamb”.

— Josh
@anotherwayfamily

If you missed any part of this series, catch up here. And if this resonated with you, subscribe — it’s free. If you enjoyed this reading or found value in it, share it.

Before reading this, you’ll want to start with Part 1 of my story, if you haven’t already. This post builds on a three-part series about my fall, confession, and the long road back. Without that context, this won’t make much sense. You can find Part 1 here.

When I was about six years old, my cousins and I walked to the park down the street.

I climbed onto the seesaw and waited for my older cousin to hop on the other side. I must have been staring at the clouds, because when he finally placed his weight down, I wasn’t ready. My hands weren’t on the handlebars. My chin went straight into the metal handle bar.

There was blood everywhere.

My older cousins, being as wise as they were, took me into the bathroom, wadded paper towels over the wound, and told me to stop crying. When the bleeding didn’t stop, we walked back to my grandma’s house. On the way, they reminded me not to say anything so they could avoid getting in trouble. Because apparently the real emergency wasn’t my chin hanging open, it was the possibility that they might get grounded.

Classic cousin protocol: apply pressure to the wound, apply more pressure to the witness. Even then, I learned that some people respond to trauma with compassion, and others respond with a cover-up plan.

They eventually told on themselves. I was too busy crying to mutter anything anyway.

I got stitches and a gnarly scar grew.

I sometimes forget it’s even there now until I feel it. Especially now with a beard. But when I feel it, I remember exactly how I got it.

That’s what scars do. They tell stories. They are evidence of lessons learned. They remind you, in great detail, of exactly what happened.

This is where we pick up the story. My soul was developing a scar.

A few years after my fall, healing had taken its course.

Jess was in a different place. The pain that once hit her every hour of every day had become less frequent, still present, still real, but no longer constant. She trusted her Lord and Savior, and she stepped forward in faith. Together we had swept away the ashes, rolled up our sleeves, and started building something new.

She stayed not for my sake, but for Christ. She knew that God makes miracles. She knew He would not be glorified by divorce, but that His name would be lifted high if — if — we gave Him room to work. If we took the harder road. If we let people watch something only a loving God could produce.

And He did.

Our love had evolved into something neither of us expected. We grew so much and learned so much that it freed us to become something unexpected. Date nights every Friday. New memories. The fun and romance we had cultivated in the small condo, in the lockdown, in the forced proximity that turned out to be grace, all of it was God’s divine intervention. I had never loved my wife the way I loved her now. I had never felt more known, more comfortable, more certain.

She had seen the worst of me. And she stayed. She made it very clear that the reason was not because she needed me, but because she still saw Jesus in me. She saw Christ in our marriage, still. She saw the Holy Spirit moving in our home, still.

But a fresh scar is still tender.

Healed is not the same as forgotten. We weren’t pretending the past didn’t happen. We weren’t performing recovery for anyone’s benefit. We were genuinely in a new place and we carried the mark of how we got there.

We never tried to erase it.

I think what we wanted to do was carry it in a way that didn’t crush us.

To let it become part of the story rather than the whole story. To not let it define us, but point us forward. The goal, as it has always been, was Jesus.

That’s a narrow road. And we chose it. We walked it.

I remember going to school after the seesaw incident and all eyes were on my chin. It was all my friends at school wanted to talk about. That’s exactly how I felt. I walked through those days with a new scar on my face, not under my chin. It felt visible to everyone, changing the temperature of every room I entered.

My pastor said something once that was beautiful and true. He told Jess and me that we were “a trophy of God’s grace, displayed on His shelf.”

He was right. It was a gorgeous image.

But I didn’t want to be a trophy on a shelf.

To me, in that season, a trophy on a shelf meant I was a cautionary tale. A museum piece. Something to look at but not touch, not trust, not include. My punishment, apparently, was to sit up there where everyone could see what had happened and remember not to do it themselves.

I understand now that isn’t what he meant. But that’s where I was.

We had already felt the strange loneliness of returning to a place that was technically still home but no longer felt like it knew where to put us. Some people were kind. Others were distant. Jess was left out of things she once would have naturally been included in. I could understand why people didn’t know what to do with me. But watching her carry the consequences of my failure was a different kind of pain.

Jess would find out after the fact about gatherings she hadn’t been told about. The new mommy group that seemed to coincidentally leave her out. Events and dinners where somehow our names just didn’t come up.

Some of our leaders and friends told us we were imagining it, that the enemy was making mountains out of molehills. Maybe. But enough people have since admitted it was intentional that I know it wasn’t all in our heads.

What became harder over time was that even when people did come near, many of the conversations still circled back to ministry. What was changing. What wasn’t working. Who was struggling. At first, I listened because I still cared. But every conversation pulled me back into the same spiral: grief over what had been lost, anger over what was happening, and shame because the reason I was no longer there was my own fault. The anger had nowhere clean to go. It always found its way back to me.

It surprised me when I felt bitterness.

I loved my church deeply. I had given years of my life to it, to the people, to the ministries, to the community. Even after everything that happened, my heart had not disconnected from it. I still cared. Maybe that was part of what made it hurt so much.

Jess and I were carrying something we believed God had given us through the wreckage of our own story.

It was a vision for family, for marriage, for discipleship in the home, for the kind of healing that does not just restore what was broken but teaches you to build differently.

We were not trying to take charge of anything. We were not asking for a platform. We were not trying to force ourselves back into a place of influence. We thought we could come alongside someone, to support, to offer what we had learned the hard way.

But conversations would start and then fade.

Doors seemed to crack open and then quietly close.

And that felt unfamiliar to me.

Before my fall, there had been moments when an idea would come, a vision would take shape, and somehow the ball would start rolling. A conversation would turn into a meeting. A meeting would turn into a team. A team would turn into a ministry. I do not think I understood it that way at the time. I did not walk around thinking, “I am anointed.” I probably would have been uncomfortable even saying it like that.

But looking back, there had been grace on the work.

There had been favor I did not know how to name until I felt what it was like to not have it.

This time was different. I shared the vision. I had the conversations. I brought it to people and leaders I respected. I hoped something would catch. But nothing really moved. The energy that once seemed to gather around a burden or an idea was not there. The momentum I had grown used to… well, it never came.

And deep down, I felt it.

Maybe that was true. Maybe it was not. Maybe God had lifted something for a season. Maybe He was protecting the church. Maybe He was protecting me. Maybe He was teaching me that a calling is His alone and it has nothing to do with how burden I feel.

I still do not know how to explain it perfectly. All I know is that I could feel the difference.

And I found myself carrying disappointment I did not know what to do with. Part of me understood. Of course I understood. Trust had been broken. People needed time. The church was healing too. But another part of me ached because the very place I wanted to help strengthen was the place where I no longer knew how to belong.

We wrestled with that. Bitterness was close by, and I could feel it. It did not announce itself loudly. It just sat underneath the surface, quiet and stubborn, waiting for the right conversation to bring it back up.

Eventually, we had to accept that maybe the vision God had given us was meant to begin at home. Maybe before it was ever meant to bless a church, it was meant to reshape our family. Maybe the first ministry God was asking us to steward was not a program, a group, or a gathering, but the life happening around our own dinner table.

That did not make the disappointment disappear. At least not initially.

But it did help us surrender it.

The scar was real. The tenderness was real.

Healing had happened, genuine, deep, miraculous healing. In our marriage. In our home. In my relationship with God. But outside of our home, in the wider community, healing moved at a different pace.

I had to wrestle with something uncomfortable: I could not control how or when others would process what I had done.

That did not make their pain less valid. It did not mean they were wrong for needing time, distance, or even silence. It simply meant I could not build my entire healing on something I had no ability to measure or manage.

When the damage reaches beyond one relationship and into a wider community, there is no clean way to measure who has forgiven you, who is still hurting, who is unsure, and who may never want to speak about it at all. The math on that was impossible, and trying to solve it only kept me chained to the wreckage.

What I could do was receive the forgiveness that had already been given by God, by Jess, and by the people who had chosen to walk with us through the wreckage. That did not erase what I had done. It did not excuse the pain I caused or give me permission to move forward carelessly. But it did give me a place to stand. I could remain humble toward those I had wounded, open to reconciliation where it was possible, and honest about the past without letting the past become my prison. I realized I could not make amends once and call it finished.

I would continue to live a life marked by repentance, humility, and repair. That had to be enough.

And slowly, by the grace of God, I was letting it be.

Next time: Four years after my fall, I was finally ready to walk again. The only problem was that I had forgotten how.

— Josh

@anotherwayfamily

If you missed any part of this series, catch up here. And if this resonated with you, subscribe — it’s free. If you enjoyed this reading or found value in it, share it.

This Poem also begins right where the last poem left off. You can refresh your memory of that here.

At the top of a hill, I finally asked God the question I had been afraid to ask: Have you forgotten me?

Then, to my surprise, He responded.

I wrote most of this poem right after that experience. A few weeks later, we found out we were having another baby. Somehow, that news was what I needed for the poem to feel complete. I didn’t write it for an audience. I didn’t try to polish it or make it sound a certain way. I just wrote what came out.

This is exactly what I wrote.

.…And yet….
….And yet…. My heart continues to beat
….And yet…. I take a breath. Then another one.

And yet, I live…..

I breathe. I breathe one breath after another, one at a time. 16 times a minute. Each one keeps me alive. They compound throughout as time passes and becomes more of my life. I manage to put one foot in front of another, and as time passes, this becomes more of my story. As much as I thought it was over, life seems to go on. The clouds move, the tides change, the grass grows, and the flowers bloom. The days are different, longer with more detail, slower with more time to spare. The routine is unfamiliar. The days carry this gloom of lostness and confusion and even though I was certain it was over, there seems to be more. Just when the caterpillar thought it was all over, it became a butterfly. I sit and stare at nothing, trying not to think of anything, looking at my empty schedule, with nothing to do. It is difficult to find joy and motivation, feeling lazy and bored. Yet… still here. God, you reminded me of one thing that led me to many other things. I am alive.

I’m still Alive.

I’m still moving, still breathing, still working, still reading, still feeling, still playing, still praying, still loving, still enjoying, still learning, still climbing, still growing. I don’t know how this is possible. I don’t see how. Even after going through this, I don’t understand how I am here. I can’t seem to make sense of it all. The chaos, destruction, and noise is all around me, everywhere I look… but not with me… at least not anymore. Like a storm, at the center of the hurricane, there is stillness in my home. Dangerous winds whipping, debris and destruction, pieces of what was are swirling around me and if I stop to look it makes my head spin. So I try not to look, and when I don’t, I find myself sitting there in the eye of the storm. I looked up and to my surprise, I found beauty, I found silence, I found peace; it was a clear and open sky. I looked up into that vast sky and searched the clouds for You God, naturally. I began to think and wonder about a few things. I did not find you, I did not hear you. I haven’t spoken to you, will you even hear my cries? My heart is screaming for you but my lips are shut, weighed down by shame and disbelief. I need to speak, as hard as it is I need to say it! I go from sitting to kneeling as I gather my strength to speak. My knees on the ground, my hands gripping the dirt and grass and head hung low, I found the strength to utter some words. As tears begin to drip, roll off my cheeks and hit the dry dirt, I finally break my silence. “O Lord, why do you stand so far away? Why do you hide when I am in trouble? Have you forgotten me? Am I no longer important to you?” I cried out to you and I heard nothing in return. My reward for being strong enough to speak was not found.

Your silence was a blow to my gut, it knocked me down and I rolled in grimacing pain of absence. I lay there on the ground looking at your wide open sky, expecting you to speak to me. I lay there wanting you to explain this to me. I lay there and wanted to feel something, something I once felt. I lay there and wanted to feel hope! I desperately wanted to feel hope, a feeling that I had missed. I lay there and… time stood still. I lay there… and time grew silent. I lay there and I knew nothing but the air around me.

As time stood still, without warning, something happened… like a cool breeze, gentle, satisfying, refreshing, invisible yet certainly there… I felt you.

I felt you draw near to me. The moment had finally come and I was shocked that it had arrived now. The moment I needed. I felt you come close to me and sit with me. I froze not knowing what to do, but I knew you were there. I knew you had heard me. I felt you near. I didn’t know what else to do, so I closed my eyes and heard your heart. You didn’t speak to me at that moment but I heard your heart. Your presence put a melody in my spirit. Your presence in that moment gave me a song in my heart. The connection in that moment lifted me off this planet as you brought me into you. Never early. Never late. Always on time. I felt you speak to my heart. God, you reminded me of one thing that led me to many other things.

You have so much for me. Like a downpour of cold, refreshing, life giving water, you touched me. I heard your heart tell my heart to look around. I see my wife. She’s there with me in the eye of the storm. I see my sons. They are there too. My beautiful family. Tears begin to stream down my face. I hang my head as I am reminded of my failure. But, as soon as it hits my mind your grace hits my heart and washes those thoughts away. You lifted my head and looked at me. You see me. You know me. I am fully known. I am fully loved.

My mouth never moved, I never said anything, but my heart said a lot. Why did this happen? How could this have happened? Where did it start? Why did it start? What was I thinking? Who am I? What am I? Why am I? I don’t understand? Where were you? Why didn’t you intervene sooner? What happens next? Where do we go from here? After each question, you kept showing me the cross, then you showed me my family. I need clarity. I rush to read your words. I read Psalm 13. God, you reminded me of one thing that led me to many other things.

You have been good to me. You have been oh so good to me. My marriage has found a new gear and we are picking up a new stride. The slower days have been a blessing for the kids. I have time for them now, unlike before. I felt you Lord, turning my head and sight towards my family, your pointing at them and showing me where you have been all this time. You have been busy working. You have been busy preparing. You have been busy healing. You have been busy changing. You have been busy moving. The change of pace has opened my eyes to something new. Something I didn’t see before. My true calling to husband, to fatherhood, to disciple making.

You have blessed us with new news, of yet another son.

To think that you would have any faith in me with anything blows my mind. A son? This was unplanned, not discussed, not even thought about, so, when I heard the news, I knew it was from you. You have been in the background this whole time, working, moving, busy setting a new scene, turning the page to a new chapter. I am on your mind.

You weren’t done, no, you continued speaking. Isaiah 49, you speak to me as you call yourself “The Redeemer.” God, you reminded me of one thing that led me to many other things. You are the Redeemer. You have not forgotten me. No, you have been thinking of me. Preparing me. Releasing blessings on me. It was clearer now. You have not given up on me. You are not fed up with me. You told me something a long time ago that didn’t seem as powerful then as it is now. I never left your mind. In your silence you have been loud and bold and profound. You told me something once and now you are telling me again. God, you reminded me of one thing that led me to many other things. You have my name on the palm of your hands. God, you have tattooed my name, MY name, on the palm of your hands. It is impossible that you would forget me.

The gravity of my situation is real and true but I have never left God’s mind or his heart. His delay makes me feel forgotten but His delays are never without purpose. A beautiful silence, a poetic delay, a glorious time to gather myself, get back up and continue walking with you Lord. I suddenly feel strong. Could I pick up my head now? You make me feel like I can, and maybe, like I should. Is it possible to look in the mirror? It’s been so long, I don’t even know what to expect. Will I recognize the man in the mirror? No, I don’t. He is different. He is not the same. He is new. He is new. He is new.

Just when the caterpillar thought it was all over, it became a butterfly. What a time to be alive, what a time to begin something new. God’s gift to me, a family. Stoke the fire Lord as you refocus me. Set your crosshairs well and steady with your mighty hand before my launch Lord. I hear you again. You did not want me to miss out on this time. You did not want me to waste this time, Lord. I have 3 young disciples. 3 arrows in my quiver. Three arrows I am to construct, keep, sharpen, and maintain. There is no greater calling. So much blessing in my home; so much love. Will I apprehend the time? I think so. Lord, you tell me you are making a way, and making things new; I see it. I will step into this, I will lean into this with boldness and gladness. Your message to me was a message of hope. Your words are like honey. Your plans are like gold. Isaiah 43, you tell me about something new. I see that you are making something new. I see that you have been moving. I see it now. I see that I am new. I am new. I am new.

Next time: Years of healing. Then years of trying to find my footing. And what it actually looks like to walk again when you're not sure your legs still work.

— Josh

@anotherwayfamily

If you missed any part of this series, catch up here. And if this resonated with you, subscribe — it’s free. If you enjoyed this reading or found value in it, share it.

Before reading this, you’ll want to start with Part 1 of my story, if you haven’t already. This post builds on a three-part series about my fall, confession, and the long road back. Without that context, this won’t make much sense. You can find Part 1 here.

Something was missing.

Not from my marriage. Not from my home. Not from the small, warm world Jess and I had built inside our four walls.

Something was missing from me.

I knew what it was. I just didn’t know how to get back to it.

After Jonah was born, life inside our home was genuinely good. Beautiful, even. We were thriving in a way I never expected. The chaos of the delivery room had cracked something open in me, and I came home different. More present. More grateful. More aware of what was right in front of me.

But there was a wall I kept running into.

My Bible.

It sat on the shelf like an old friend I didn’t know how to face anymore. I’d reach for it sometimes. I’d pull it down, dust it off, hold it in my hands. And then I’d put it back.

I took it to work with me more than once, tucking it into my bag with the best of intentions. I was going to read at lunch. Like I used to. Like the old days.

What I actually did was take my Bible on a car ride and bring it home again.

Every time I opened it (or tried to) the memories came flooding in. This was the book I had preached from. The sword I had carried into ministry. The pages I had marked up and worn thin in the service of everyone else. And now, every time I picked it up, it led me straight back to the same place.

My failure.

I couldn’t separate the Word from the wound. I felt like God was mad at me, that I disappointed him, and now there’s tension in our relationship that I didn’t know how to handle.

Prayer wasn’t that much better. I prayed, but not for myself.

Every prayer I lifted was for Jess. For her healing. For the washing of her mind, the mending of her heart, the protection of her spirit. I asked God daily to let her flourish despite me. I prayed that she would grow in ways I couldn’t give her. I poured everything I had into those prayers, and I meant every word.

But I kept myself out of it entirely.

It wasn’t an accident. It was intentional.

I had convinced myself that I didn’t deserve to bring my own pain to God. That asking for my own healing would be cowardly. That the least I could do was absorb whatever came and not complain about it. I was angry at myself, and I wanted to stay angry. I thought that was the righteous thing to do.

So I held God at arm’s length. And the distance grew.

I was experiencing His blessings everywhere I looked, in my marriage, in my sons, in the strange grace of lockdown forcing us to actually deal with our problems. I could see His hand at work. I just couldn’t feel close to Him.

I was watching God from across the room.

When we returned to church the second time around, we got a lot of the same experiences as the first.

Some people were warm. A few came up and hugged us and told us they had been praying for us, and I believed them. Those moments meant more than I knew how to say.

But others couldn’t look at me. Some who I had loved, poured into, given years of my life to; they looked right through me. Or turned away. Some made it clear, without a single word, that as far as they were concerned, I had forfeited my place at the table permanently.

I understood it. I really did. But understanding something and not feeling it are two different things.

What I couldn’t stomach was watching it happen to Jess.

She hadn’t done anything wrong. She had stayed. She had chosen the hard road. She had chosen Christ over comfort and her family over her pride. And still, some people treated her differently too. Left out. Overlooked. Like she was guilty by association with the man who had failed them.

That was mine to carry. The weight of knowing that my choices had cast a shadow over the woman who deserved the most light.

We went home from those visits feeling low, unwanted, and cast aside. The pandemic, even after the lockdown lifted, still kept gatherings and events off the table for a while. And to be honest, Jess and I were both quietly relieved. We weren’t proud of that. But it was true.

Eventually, some people started coming to me with their problems. Not about me, about the church. What was happening, what had changed, what wasn’t working. As if no one had figured out how to talk to me about anything other than ministry.

At first, I listened. I cared about those people. I cared about what we had built together.

But every conversation pulled me back into the same spiral. The ministries I had poured myself into were struggling. Complaints about certain leaders and what they were doing to the culture of the group. New people destroying what was once established. And every time someone told me about it, I felt the anger rise up, at the situation, at the decisions being made, at myself for not being there… for being the reason I wasn’t there.

The anger had nowhere to go. It always landed back on me.

That was the cycle. Every time.

Somewhere in the middle of all this, I had a session with Otis where something broke loose.

We had been walking the dark pathways for a while by then. The childhood wounds. The self-esteem he kept pointing me back to. The roots beneath the roots. But that day, Otis introduced me to something new.

He told me about a psychiatrist named Dr. Daniel Amen and his concept of ANTs (Automatic Negative Thoughts). The idea was simple enough: just like an ant infestation in your kitchen, your mind can become overrun with negative thoughts that just keep coming, uninvited, automatic, relentless. And left unchecked, they don’t just make you feel bad. They convince you that what they’re saying is true.

I didn’t have a few ANTs. I had an infestation.

You are worthless. You don’t deserve to be here. You have gone too far. God is done with you. You have no right to ask for anything.

Otis helped me see that these weren’t convictions from the Holy Spirit. They weren’t even honest assessments of reality.

They were lies dressed up in the language of humility.

What felt like appropriate self-punishment was actually a colony of thoughts eating away at whatever was left of me.

I had been guilt-beating myself for almost three years. I did it so much and so often that I had settled into something destructive and let those labels become my identity.

Fallen pastor. Fraud. Failure. I had accepted every one of them without question.

The point wasn’t to replace all of that with empty optimism. Otis was too wise for that, and so was I. The goal wasn’t positive thinking. It was accurate thinking. Challenging the thought. Asking whether it was actually true.

I had been so focused on making sure I didn’t let myself off the hook that I had handed the enemy a megaphone and called it repentance.

That session hit different.

He prayed over me before I left, the way he always did. A spritz of hand sanitizer (COVID days, eye roll) held hands, bowed, and prayed.

I drove home in silence, deep in thought.

Near where we live, there’s a hill I had never climbed.

I had driven past it a thousand times. Walked near it. Seen other people up there. Never gone myself.

That day, when I got home, I parked the car and instead of walking inside, I looked up at that hill.

And I went.

I don’t know exactly why or what prompted my feet to start walking up the trail. I just realized I was doing it. Maybe I was looking for space. Maybe I needed to be somewhere high enough for a new perspective.

It was the first time I had ever been up there.

It was beautiful. A cloudy sky dancing over the ocean. The Channel Islands sitting quietly in the distance. Birds and butterflies moving through the breeze around me. Soft. Still. The kind of view that under any other circumstance would have taken my breath away.

But I felt heavy. The beauty couldn’t reach me.

I stood at the top and looked out and felt the full weight of everything pressing down at once, all over again. Not just the fall. Not just the shame. All of it, the distance from God, the Bible I couldn’t open, the prayers I had withheld from myself, the years of building my identity on the wrong foundation and then watching it collapse.

I fell to my knees.

I laid down in the dirt and grass and looked up at the sky. And I said the thing I had been too ashamed to say out loud for two years.

I laid there and waited.

There was nothing. Just the sky. Just the sound of the wind moving through the grass.

And then, it happened, a stillness. A presence settling in like a change in the air. Something I hadn’t felt in a long, long time.

He sat with me.

I don’t know how else to describe it. He didn’t explain anything. He didn’t answer the question directly. He just came close.

And in that closeness, something was communicated that words would have cheapened. That I hadn’t gone too far. That the distance had never been His choice. That He had been here the whole time; in the delivery room, in our home, with the kids… I just hadn’t been able to feel it.

I came home and I wrote.

What came out wasn’t an explanation. It was another poem.

I sat on that poem for a week, trying to articulate what had happened on that hilltop.

I knew it wasn’t finished. I could feel it, the way you can feel that a sentence doesn’t have its last word yet. Something was still missing.

Then Jess told me she was pregnant. Again.

We weren’t trying. We hadn’t planned it. I had honestly thought we were probably done.

Jess hadn’t been feeling well. We figured she might have caught COVID again. She went in to get checked out, and came home with news we weren’t expecting.

So how’d it go at the doctor?

Well… it isn’t COVID.

But when she told me, I knew immediately. This wasn’t an accident. This was God still writing. Still moving. Still not done with us.

The news overwhelmed my heart and I pulled Jess into a hug. She was shocked by my reaction. I’m not typically wired that way. I usually cycle through shock, denial, frustration, and a full inventory check before I find my way back to joy.

Not this time.

Then we found out the baby was another boy. We were having another son.

Three sons. Three arrows. An unplanned pregnancy that showed up at exactly the moment I needed to see that God was still speaking into my life, not despite everything, but through it.

I went back to the poem.

And I knew what had been missing.

This.

Next time: the poem I wrote on that hill, and what God said, as best as I could articulate it.

— Josh
@anotherwayfamily

If you missed any part of this series, catch up here. And if this resonated with you, subscribe — it’s free. If you enjoyed this reading or found value in it, share it.

Before reading this, you’ll want to start with Part 1 of my story, if you haven’t already. This post builds on a three-part series about my fall, confession, and the long road back. Without that context, this won’t make much sense. You can find Part 1 here.

The Wedding I Wasn’t Supposed to Attend

My fall continued to inflict pain in ways I didn’t anticipate. Sometimes it caught me by surprise. Other times, the blow was expected but no less devastating.

My sister-in-law’s wedding was both.

The wedding itself was wonderful. Beautiful, even. But in the silence of my heart, it was a very painful experience.

This was a wedding I was supposed to officiate.

I remember being so happy when they asked me. This was my sister. This was a brother in Christ who had become a good friend. This was a couple whose love story began in my young adults ministry. I would have the wonderful privilege of officiating their union, of sealing their covenant with front-row seats to their joy.

That’s not what happened.

After my fall, I was told I would no longer be officiating their wedding. It was the right thing to do and I am not disputing that at all. But it hurt. Badly.

What hurt even more than that was what came next.

I wasn’t even invited to the wedding.

Let me be clear: I understood. The pandemic forced them to downsize. COVID regulations meant a very limited number of friends and family. Choices had to be made.

But I went from front and center to not even there at all.

I noticed. And I didn’t say anything about it. I just felt really sad.

No one advocated for me. No one spoke up to point it out. I felt like I had no place to utter the words, “What about me?”

I felt like I didn’t matter.

And I know some people reading this might be thinking, Yeah, that’s exactly what you deserved.

To that, I’d say: that’s fair. Honestly, I understand that perspective. I really do. I didn’t deserve to be there. I can admit that. I understand why some people would say my pain was justified. But that still didn’t silence what I felt. It didn’t make the hurt disappear. It didn’t keep me from feeling forgotten.

Days before the wedding, someone convinced them to expand the guest list by five people, and I was finally brought up. Even though my wife was in the wedding as the maid of honor, no one had given me a second thought.

I was happy to attend. I ignored my pain to be present at their beautiful wedding.

I sat there in the back, watching someone else officiate the ceremony I should have led. A reminder of what I had lost. A reminder of the collateral damage I had caused.

I was no longer a pastor. I was no longer trusted with sacred moments. And seemingly at the time, I was barely even considered family.

And I had done this to myself.

Contractions

The wedding was beautiful, intimate, lovely, almost like a whimsical dinner party. I was genuinely happy for the lovebirds. I was also just happy to be around people again. It was the middle of the pandemic, and we had all been so socially deprived.

As the ceremony began, I managed to set my feelings aside and simply enjoy the moment with them. I did my best to smile, have fun, and not make it about me.

Somewhere in the middle of the ceremony, Jess whispered to me:

I’m starting to have contractions.

She had me start timing contractions as the happy couple shared their first dance.

As the wedding was wrapping up, Jess’s contractions increased. It was time! But we kept it to ourselves as not steal the spotlight. Jess was a true warrior and held it together for her sister.

Once the newlyweds left the reception, we told everyone that Jess was in labor and we needed to leave. We rushed out of there as fast as we could.

In the car, things started to settle a little and we decide to swing by the house to pick up our things before heading to the hospital.

The Delivery Room

What followed was our toughest delivery. Nothing life-threatening, just very action-packed. Intense. Overwhelming.

The contractions picked back up as soon as we got to the hospital. The moans, the groans, the labor pains, everything intensified quickly.

I wanted to help. I wanted to comfort her, pray for her, hold her hand. But I hesitated.

Would she even want that from me? Would she reject me? Would she scream at me and say all the things I probably deserved to hear?

I remember Jess being especially nervous because there was a real possibility she might have to do this alone. During those COVID days, we had heard stories of husbands not being allowed in.

That told me something I needed to know: she wanted me there.

And I was ready to push my way through those doors if I had to, just to be with my wife. Thankfully, it didn’t come to that. After answering a few COVID screening questions, they let me in.

Usually, during labor, nurses come in and out often. They monitor, guide, reassure, and help make the experience feel manageable. With our first son, we had an amazing nurse who did exactly that. She dimmed the lights, brought water, blankets, gave helpful suggestions, responded quickly, and made a hard moment feel as smooth as possible.

This time was different.

Because of COVID restrictions, the nurses couldn’t stay in the room for long. Their interaction was minimal. They came in, did what they needed to do, and left almost immediately.

Jess needed more support than they were able to give under those restrictions. I was no longer wondering whether I still had a place, weather I was invited, if I had a seat at the table. I knew I did.

So I stepped into that role and did my best to make her as comfortable as I could.

Then came the epidural.

With our first, Jess had delivered naturally, and she had been willing to try that again. But this labor was different. This experience was different. She was exhausted, overwhelmed, and ready for relief.

The doctor came in, explained the procedure, and began his work. Jess had to hunch over and stay completely still. It was critical that she not move.

But the moment he started, the baby started making his entrance.

The doctor, sweating and clearly overwhelmed, finished as quickly as he could and patched Jess up fast — but not fast enough. Baby was well on his way out.

So many things could have gone wrong. Jess had been told not to move, but in that moment, she moved a lot.

Thank God, everything was fine.

And then he was there.

Our beautiful baby boy. Jonah.

I cried. I felt a wave of emotions hit me.

My son had just entered the world in dramatic fashion. The room was still buzzing with the chaos of delivery. Jess was exhausted. The nurses were cleaning him up. I held him and held Jess, and there we were, together. I was overwhelmed and just wept.

Because in that moment, something became crystal clear.

Out there, in the world beyond this room, I was a reject. I was unwanted. I wasn’t even considered.

But here? In this delivery room?

I was everything.

To this little boy, I mattered. I was the most important thing in his world, other than his mother. And to another little boy at home with his grandparents, I mattered too.

I may not have been important to the outside world anymore. I may have lost my position, my platform, my role in the church.

But I was important in that room.

My wife needed me, and I was there. My son was born, and I was there.

And nothing else mattered.

A Shift in Mindset

This was the moment my views, thoughts, and beliefs about family started to transform.

For so long, my identity had been wrapped up in my role. Pastor. Leader. The guy who counseled and preached sermons and led ministries.

I thought that’s what made me matter. I thought that’s what made me valuable. I took my eyes off Jesus, and everything unraveled.

But God was redirecting me from one path to a new path.

He was stripping away the titles, the roles, the external validation, because he wanted to show me what actually mattered.

I was so focused on being important to everyone that I missed the people right in front of me.

My wife. My sons. My family.

This was a different kind of sacred role. The role of a husband standing beside his wife in her most vulnerable moment. The role of a father holding his newborn son.

In that delivery room, I had my wife, my son, and the presence of the Holy Spirit.

Peace in Isolation

Having another baby kept us in isolation once again. COVID fears and a newborn meant strict visitation rules. Minimal contact with friends and family.

It was just me, my wife, and my kids. Again. And it was great!

A few months ago, I would have felt trapped. Cornered. Desperate to leave.

But now? This is all I wanted.

My home became my peace. Being away from church and fellowship was hard, and it didn’t help our ability to reintegrate back into the community. But God hadn’t abandoned me. He was just teaching me what I should have known all along.

We were doing so good. But outside the world we created, things were not good. The problems existed out there. Opinions about me were only true out there.

In here, in our home, we had created an oasis. And it was heavenly.

I started to adopt this attitude: let the world burn, just give me my family. You could say the pendulum had swung too far in the other direction, and I’d probably agree. But in that moment, I think I needed it to.

God was at work. He was showering us with blessings, and I didn’t want to miss a moment.

I felt rich. Filthy rich.

Rich with life. Rich with love. Rich with passion.

Except in one particular area... I wasn’t rich in spirit.

There was one critical area of my life was still in drought.

My relationship with God was still distant. I wasn’t reading the Bible. I wasn’t praying much beyond survival prayers. I was existing in this strange tension — experiencing God’s presence in the delivery room, feeling His blessings in my family, but still holding Him at arm’s length.

Stepping in and out of these two worlds caused a lot of confusion about who I was and who I was becoming.

And it was starting to get really difficult to deal with. Especially since I was trying to navigate it all without God.

I wanted to feel Him. I wanted to hear from Him. But I didn’t know how to bridge the gap between the blessings I could see and the relationship I couldn’t feel.

The questions wouldn’t stop: Where were You? Why didn’t You intervene sooner? What happens next?

Where do we go from here?

I had felt God’s presence in that delivery room. I knew He was at work in my family.

But I still couldn’t shake the feeling that I was no longer important to Him.

That maybe I had gone too far.

Then, almost 2 years later… I climbed a mountain… and met with God…

Next time: 2 years later... Jess and I were shocked with news of yet ANOTHER pregnancy!

And then… the moment I cried out to God and asked Him the question I’d been too afraid to say out loud: “Have You forgotten me?”

And what happened when He answered.

— Josh
@anotherwayfamily

If you missed any part of this series, catch up here. And if this resonated with you, subscribe — it's free.

When your life falls apart, you don’t get to choose what help looks like.

You don’t get to pick the perfect therapist with the impressive credentials and the pristine office in the nice part of town. You don’t get to check yourself into some world-renowned facility with 24-hour intensive care, neurologists on staff, and a team of specialists mapping out your recovery.

Most of us can’t afford that. I certainly couldn’t.

What I got was a 94-year-old man in suspenders, working out of a small office with outdated furniture, who said this was his ministry now and he’d be happy with whatever donation I could give.

I could have scoffed. I could have recoiled. I could have told myself this wasn’t serious enough, professional enough, specialized enough for what I was dealing with.

But I didn’t have that luxury.

I was desperate. Desperate for change. Desperate for answers. Desperate to understand how I had destroyed the most important thing in my life and whether there was any way to rebuild it.

So I took what was offered.

And I think there’s something important in that for anyone who’s struggling right now, especially if you’re in a church culture that looks down on therapy, or if you don’t have the funds for expensive treatment, or if you just don’t know where to start.

Whatever, good, sound, biblical help comes along, take it. Don’t wait for the perfect solution. Don’t dismiss what’s available just because it doesn’t look like what you imagined.

God is in it. The Lord provides. And if you seek Him, He will be found.

“You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,” declares the Lord.
— Jeremiah 29:13-14

I didn’t know it at the time, but that sweet old man in the corduroy slacks would become one of the most important people in my healing journey.

This is the story of Otis. And what he taught me about the dark pathways we all carry.

Meeting Otis

Part of my healing journey was therapy. I know there are a lot of opinions on this subject, but I’m grateful my church and pastor didn’t have reservations about it. Therapy was instrumental in my healing.

I was eager to start, not only because of my background in the mental health field, but because I had questions that wouldn’t let me go.

I remember walking into the therapist’s office for the first time.

The waiting room was small and only had seating for three people. The front desk was empty and had worship music playing softly in the background.

I felt nervous that someone would walk in through the door and recognize me.

Luckily, I wasn’t out there too long when Otis came out to greet me.

Otis was a 94-year-old white gentleman, standing about 6 foot 2 inches tall. He was balding, wearing corduroy slacks and a nice button-up plaid shirt with suspenders. He spoke softly, gently, and with an old Southern twang.

Not at all what I was expecting.

“So, tell me somethin’ good,” he said to me as soon as we sat down together.

The irony here is that I have been on the other side of this conversation thousands of times. I worked in the mental health field for many years, counseling people and supporting people through the craziness of life.

So when Otis asked me to tell him something good, my mind immediately went to criticizing his therapeutic style. I was being critical of his old and very outdated furniture, his office snacks, and even of the trinkets he had all over his office and bookshelf.

He wanted me to tell him something good. I knew he had been told about the horrible thing I did and all of the scary and ugly details. My pastor had called him and laid it all out before I ever walked through that door.

I guess it is possible that he forgot the dire reason I was there. I mean, he was in his 90s. How could he be taking this so lightly?

I had been thinking about this day since my pastor made the appointment. I had been psychoanalyzing myself this entire time. I had a long list of things to say that were locked and loaded and ready to be vomited out.

So when he asked me to tell him something good, I felt disarmed. Neutralized. This was something I wasn’t ready and prepared to talk about.

My entire focus had been on all the bad. I couldn’t see anything good at all. I almost felt offended by the question itself.

I had just gone through the most terrible, surreal, and traumatic event in my entire life, and he wants to know about what is good?

It was hard to be upset at such a sweet and kind old gentle giant like Otis.

I struggled to find an answer to his question and found myself taking over the conversation, trying to get to the meat of everything. I wanted to rip the band-aid off. Of course, I didn’t get too far into that first conversation with him without breaking down and weeping in his office.

Otis wasn’t what I was expecting in this situation. But I took what was offered to me and trusted the Lord.

Week after week, he always started with the same thing: “So, tell me somethin’ good.”

The Lord used him in an unexpected, but mighty way in my life. He was critical to major breakthroughs in my journey, some of which I am excited to share here in future posts.

But let me start with the very first lesson he taught me. Nothing overt. Nothing groundbreaking. If anything, it was something I already knew. But the way he said it made it land differently.

The Dark Pathways

Everything in your past, whether you realize it or not, whether you remember it or not, shapes who you are today.

We are all icebergs. We walk around with a certain level of awareness as to who we are and why we do what we do. But the size of an iceberg cannot be measured by what is apparent on the surface.

For most of us, this is how we operate daily: surface level. We are so concerned and occupied with the present and the future that we often don’t notice our ability to look back, much less understand the value of doing so.

But when you are wise enough to look under the surface, strong enough to dive deep, brave enough to explore the depths of who and why you are the way you are, you discover something.

You discover that life, as your days add up, leaves pathways and trails that can take you back to the past.

Otis called them “the dark pathways.”

Scripture tells us to grow in our understanding and knowledge of Him, and encourages us to engage in thought, even in an intellectual pursuit of Him. Sometimes, this growth requires a journey back to see why you act, feel, or think a certain way.

But here’s the wisdom Otis taught me: this journey requires caution. It’s wise not to travel alone.

We’re warned in Scripture about getting stuck in the past, about letting it consume us. We’re encouraged to let go of what’s behind and not worry about the future. Instead, God wants us to focus on the day at hand and trust Him with the rest.

So I took the opportunity to explore my past under good supervision. And that’s what I’m recommending, because there is much to learn and much to discover. But you need a guide.

Otis and I walked together through the earliest years of my life. What was interesting to me was that Otis made it feel like a walk in the park. It’s just the way he was about everything. No reason to panic, no reason to judge, no reason to hurry.

He lived as if he was taking a walk in the park.

It’s amazing where some of these pathways lead. They lead back to places like your old house, your old room, your old toys as a child. They can lead back to old friends, neighbors, or missed loved ones. They can lead back to the taste of your favorite meal that mom used to make. Or the song that was playing during birthdays, barbecues, or holiday gatherings. They can lead back to the smell of rainy days or summer nights.

The more you explore and take the time to allow your mind to remember, the more details will emerge. The colors of the wallpaper. The time of day. The feeling of the couch fabric. Even the extra layer of dust on the trinkets that crowded the side tables at grandma’s house.

Otis helped me paint the colors of my memories. He helped me smell the grass of the parks my parents took me to. He helped me unlock hurts that I never knew were there. He helped me understand myself more than I ever have in the past.

The journey can be wonderful. It could be a beautiful thing to take some of these pathways.

But not all pathways are filled with good feelings and nostalgia.

Some pathways are dark. Some pathways are not fun to visit. No wonder why these pathways are overgrown and hard to get through compared to the well-established ones that lead to euphoria.

Your brain is designed to protect you. Some pathways are so dark and overgrown that it’s hard to even notice the trailhead. Most people will go an entire lifetime without ever going back to take these less traveled, darker, and sometimes hidden trails.

Well, why would anyone want to do that anyway?

I know I didn’t. But I had to.

I didn’t leave myself any other choice. There was no other option. This was the only way I could possibly begin to understand what happened to me. Why I did what I did. I needed answers, and this was the only way.

How could I have done what I did?

How could I have taken the most precious, my most valuable, most important thing to me, and destroyed it?

I didn’t understand. And I needed to.

The journey wasn’t overnight. It was long and painful. I had to dig deep into where the foreign feeling came from in the first place. I had to examine all traces that could have led to this. Every session with Otis, a little more was revealed.

Otis wasn’t the answer. Jesus was. But Jesus used this kind man in my life to walk me through what I needed to see. Especially since I wasn’t talking to God, and seemingly at the time, He wasn’t talking to me either.

For me, the dark pathways led back to childhood wounds. Unresolved shame. A broken sense of self-worth. Those were the roots beneath the surface.

But here’s what you need to understand: the pathways are different for everyone. Maybe yours lead back to a trauma you’ve never named. Maybe they trace back to growing up in a home where love felt conditional, where performance was the price of belonging. Maybe it’s an old wound you minimized or buried because the world told you to move on. Maybe it’s a loss you never properly grieved.

The specifics don’t matter as much as the truth beneath them: unhealed wounds don’t stay buried. They grow roots. And if you’re in leadership, those roots don’t just affect you, they affect everyone under your care.

The Gift of Desperation

Looking back now, I’m grateful for the support I got. I’m grateful for Otis, my pastor, and the two other people in my corner. I couldn’t afford the world-renowned specialists, but I took advantage of the opportunities I was given.

Would I have liked top-tier care and support? Of course. I often wonder what I would have discovered or where I would have landed if I’d been able to do that.

But I might have missed Otis.

I might have missed the quiet wisdom of a 94-year-old man who made therapy feel like a walk in the park.

And I might have missed the most important lesson he taught me… about what’s good.

Week after week, Otis always started our sessions the same way: “So, tell me somethin’ good.”

I slowly, began to understand what he was doing.

He was teaching me that there’s always something good to talk about. Even when all is lost. Even when you’ve destroyed everything.

Because He is on the throne. Jesus is alive, and He has rescued us from the grips of sin and death. He is always willing to forgive. Always looking for a relationship with His people.

Otis’s constant asking of that question helped me take my eyes off all the things that were wrong and shifted my focus to what God was still doing in my life.

My marriage wasn’t over. My kids loved me. My parents loved me. Even though I only had two or three people in my corner, I had people in my corner. Others in the church were praying for me, and God still wanted to use me.

There was always something good.

At the end of one session, Otis gave me a laminated card with a quote on it. I sort of rolled my eyes at the time, it felt too cheesy, too simplistic for the weight of what I was carrying.

But I kept it. And now it sits in my car, and I can’t help but smile every time I see it:

There is always hope in the Lord.

Otis made sure that’s always how we started our sessions.

Otis wasn’t charging me a professional rate. He said this was his ministry now, and he’d be happy with whatever donation I could give. Yes, there was a point where this was his vocation and he needed to make a living, but those days were long gone. He just wanted to help people.

I’m not saying there’s an Otis in your area. I’m not saying you’ll find a 94-year-old therapist in suspenders who works for donations.

But I am saying this: whatever help is available to you, take it.

Don’t wait for the perfect counselor, the perfect program, the perfect moment when you have enough money or time or courage.

If your pastor offers to meet with you, take it. If there’s a support group at your church, go. If a friend recommends their therapist and you can barely afford it, find a way. If all you can access is a free crisis hotline, call it.

The Enemy wants you to believe that if you can’t get the best help, most discrete help, or help that is easily accessible, then you shouldn’t get any help at all. That’s a lie.

God doesn’t need a fancy office or an impressive resume to meet you in your brokenness. He just needs your willingness to show up.

I showed up to Otis’s office broken, desperate, and critical. I left each session with a little more understanding, a little more hope, and a little more clarity about who I was and why I had fallen.

That’s what desperation can do. It strips away your pickiness. It removes your pride. It makes you willing to accept help in whatever form it comes.

And sometimes, that willingness is exactly what God is waiting for.

If you’re struggling right now — spiritually dry, emotionally exhausted, hiding something — don’t wait for the perfect solution.

Seek help. Godly help. Take what’s available and make the most of it.

The Lord provides. And if you seek Him with all your heart, He will be found.

Even if He shows up in the form of a 94-year-old man in suspenders.

Not at all what I was expecting.

Next time: The wild story of my second son's birth — and the moment in the delivery room when I knew, without a doubt, that God hadn't abandoned me.

— Josh
@anotherwayfamily

If you missed any part of this series, start here. And if this resonated with you, subscribe — it’s free.

I’ve written sermons, lessons, devotionals. I’ve crafted words meant to inspire, encourage, and point people to Jesus.

But this? This was different.

This wasn’t for a congregation. This wasn’t polished or prepared. This was for me, or maybe it was God pulling something out of me that I didn’t know how to say any other way. I had no intention of sharing this with anyone.

The day I saw the deer outside my window, something broke open. The numbness I’d been living in for months shattered, and I was flooded with everything I’d been avoiding. Shame. Disgust. Grief. The weight of what I’d done.

I went to my desk and I wrote.

What came out was a poem.

Raw. Broken. Honest.

To understand this fully and in its context, I encourage you to read Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 before reading this poem.

I’m sharing it with you because this is what it looks like when the fog lifts and you finally see yourself clearly.

This is The Man In The Mirror.

How many mistakes can one man bear? This year, I have gone through mistake after mistake after mistake. My life has completely flipped on its head. I am not who I thought I was. I have gone through the unthinkable. I almost gave up my wife, my kids, and my family. I have disqualified myself for the work of the ministry. I lost the trust of everyone, I am even failing at my job. I have taken the privilege of leading a flock, and defiled it. I have dug a hole with my hands and the sweat of my brow and laid in it, away from Your light. I took your perfect plan and threw it away. For what? What possible reason could a sane man do this for? An empty bag of hot air? I have built the walls that I am trying to climb over. No one to blame but you in the mirror. I tried to peel myself away from God. I, willingly, jumped off a cliff and am falling in slow motion to my death. I always believed I was not up to the task of “pastor”, now my greatest fear has come, it’s true. Everywhere I turn, in every aspect of this season, I see the word “failure” . I hear the words “you are not good enough”.

How much shame can one man bear? Who are you, looking at me in the mirror? I don’t know you! I don’t want you! You disgust me, you’re repulsive. What have you done with me! What have you done to my wife, she has done nothing but love you. She doesn’t deserve this, this pain, you caused. Why does she waste her time on you? That day you spoke to her on the couch with words that sliced through flesh and stabbed her heart. You know you were wrong, you felt it too, a nervous tingling in your feet and arms, you know you had gone too far, the illusion had taken too much, the lies had taken a hold of you completely, you lost control. Why are you looking at me? You fool! The image of her and the face she made now seared into your eyelids, so even when you sleep you are reminded of how destructive you are. The memory etched in history you have to live with, no wonder you can’t sleep. No wonder you toss and turn and your body can’t rest, it’s because you can’t stand your own skin. Rot, you deserve to rot in that bed for what you did to my wife, she is good, she is beautiful, she is the best thing that ever happened to you, a gift from God and yet you spat in his face when he gave her to you. The suffering you put her through and still. She was pregnant with your next son! What kind of evil are you? You’re no husband, no father, no leader, no son. You have placed me somewhere that is unseen, a place where the lepers go, so no one can touch them. I am there so no one can smell my stench or see my flesh fall off my bones. I’m a dead man walking, thanks to you. David, why did you write so little on this, there is much more to the burns, loneliness, and emotional shattering that you speak of. There is more David, you know it. It’s an incredible low that I feel no one but you and I truly understand. Can this wrong be made right?

How much guilt can one man bear? What have you done to my kids? How could you have chosen a different path than the glorious one laid before you? Glowing by the blood of Jesus who paid the price for this. God gave them to you! How could you put them on the altar like that? You tied them up, one born and one unborn. You gaged them and tied their precious little hands and feet with a dried vine of thorns. You looked at them in their eyes as you sharpen your knife! God showed you glimpses of what could be: camping, fishing, sports, hugs, kisses, laughter, joy. No, you allowed me to be played like a puppet as satan controlled you. You raised your arm, crying, holding the weapon, and you didn’t yell for help! As your arm swung down, God intervened. Not you. God did. You never yelled for help. You held your tongue you bloodthirsty fool. You knew He would help if only you spoke! Abraham knows the feeling but there is a stark difference between you and him. He did it at the request of the father. You did it in spite of the father’s plea to stop. What is wrong with you? You’re sick in the head and deserve death. Their sweet smiles should never be shown to you, their innocent laughter should never be heard by you, their love and trust should never be placed with you. You don’t deserve that. They deserve better.

How much failure can one man bear? This is too much, it feels like too much. What have you done to my ministry? I see the way they look at me, I used to be their leader, and the look has changed. I see how they avoid me. I remember when I was there for them in their darkest hour. I remember being used by Jesus to speak into their life, have they forgotten? I remember preparing a message with them in mind. I remember praying for them and their issues, struggles, fears, no matter how big or how small. No matter the time of day, when no else cared, I cared. When no one else was there, I was there. When they were lost, confused, or scared I did everything I could to show them the way, to bring them clarity, and to provide refuge. Now they look at me like none of that is true. I gave them the best years of my life, never stopping, phone never off just in case, no matter the time of day. Every second of the day was devoted to the work of the ministry. I chose to bless them with money, with my time, with advice, with everything I had. I gave it everything I had. Every ounce of wisdom given to me from heaven was wringed out for them. Now it’s like that never happened. They don’t want me around. I am not invited. I am not welcome. I am given a reluctant “hi” while they jump for joy to say hi to the people behind me. I remember building this group through Christ, establishing a culture, with Jesus as our center. I remember feeling valued, feeling important, feeling loved. My opinion mattered so much! Now, I am not spoken to at all. The joy that comes from being called, it’s like bathing in gold after the hard work. It felt like God was looking directly at me as I served him and He knew me. There’s nothing better than doing what you were specifically, intricately, designed and created intentionally, to do. Now you live with the pain of knowing that truth, but never being able to go back to that. Is this how it feels Adam? Being a part of perfection and then being cast out, never allowed to return? Serving in what you were created for, fitting in, fulfilling your purpose, everything making sense, doing exactly what you were meant to do, with the Lord providing for your every need; with the aroma of satisfaction hitting your heart and God’s nose. Then, throwing yourself out into the trash. Nothing compares to living out what you were made to do. I remember feeling my heart smile, lush, full, alive. Now it’s crusty, dried, shaking, beaten, bruised, dying. All because of you, in the mirror.

How much humiliation can one man bear? My face was numb, my knees trembling, my eyes blurred with tears as I walked up on that stage. What have you done to my church? A young promising pastor with a lot of potential, pfft. You were a mistake! This wonderful church should not have gone through this, they should not have trusted you with the impeccable responsibility of the pulpit in any regard. Not for Youth, not for Young Adults, and especially not for the congregation. It wasn’t too long before that day, I was preaching. On fire for God, encouraging, and setting other fires. Now, as I stand in front with the worst news, it was all washed away. I couldn’t even look into your eyes, church. I had to look down, or into the wall behind you. As I spoke I could hear the air leave the room, I noticed out of the corner of my eye when you put your head down, when you wiped away a tear, when you held your fingers to your lips in disbelief. I felt the disappointment. I felt the shame. I felt the embarrassment. I let you down, all of you, my friends, my family, my flock. I broke the trust that you all gave me, and I fear that could never be mended again.

And just like that, everything you were is gone.
You aren’t good enough.
You are a failure.
There it is, it’s out. The truth is finally out and displayed in the brightness for all to see that you are not and will never be good enough. How much of this can I bear?
It’s enough to break a man. It’s enough to break me. It is what broke me.
There’s nothing left. The veins in those hands, flowing with blood.
Life. It’s all I have left, so, there’s nothing left, but my life. Worthless life.
Empty, meaningless life.
All I have are memories now. And the curious thought of what could have been.
I failed everyone. Everyone.
The despair, the emptiness, the void that’s left in my soul, is what I deal with now every day; knowing exactly what used to fit there, but also knowing that I could never have that again. Ever.
Every day, I wake up, and see you there in the mirror, reminding me of all this, everyday. On repeat. Like a nightmare you can never wake up from, except its real life.
It’s my reality.
I don’t know if I could take this any longer.
I think a huge part of me is dead.
I think I’m dead inside.
I think I’m dead.
No purpose.
Empty.
Numb.
Lifeless.
Dead…

When I wrote this, I never intended for anyone to read it.

This was between me and God. Between me and the man I saw in the mirror that day.

But as I’ve walked this journey of healing, I’ve come to realize that the things we’re most ashamed of — the things we think are too ugly to show anyone — are often the exact things someone else desperately needs to hear.

Because if you’re in that place right now, if you’re standing in front of your own mirror and can’t recognize the person staring back at you, you need to know something:

You’re not alone. And there is a way through.

This wasn’t the only time I wrote like this. Over the course of my healing, there were four other moments when something broke open and a poem poured out. Each one marked a different phase of the journey. Each one captured something I couldn’t say any other way.

I’ll be sharing all five of them in the book.

But for now, I want you to know this: the moment you can finally see yourself clearly (as broken and ugly and shameful as that moment feels) that’s not the end.

That’s the beginning.

Next post: Meeting Otis, and the dark pathways we all carry.

— Josh
@anotherwayfamily

If this resonated with you, subscribe here for free. And if you’re struggling, don’t wait. Reach out to someone today.

This is Part 3. If you haven’t read Parts 1 & 2, start here before continuing.

In my last post, I told you what happened when I crossed the line. The confession. The collapse. And left off on the cliffhanger… the pandemic lockdown with nowhere to run.

This is the part about the work.

Not the dramatic kind. Not the breakthrough moment where everything suddenly clicks and the music swells and the credits roll.

This is about the slow, grinding, unglamorous work of rebuilding a life from the rubble.

The kind of work that happens in therapy offices and over awkward dinners and during nine months of pandemic lockdown with nowhere to run. The kind of work that requires you to show up every single day, even when you’re not sure you want to.

I can’t fully express how difficult this stage was. To have it summarized in a single post feels wildly inaccurate. Like trying to describe an ocean by showing you a cup of water.

But I’ll try.

Because if you’re in leadership and you’re spiritually dry, emotionally exhausted, hiding something, or numbing the pain with substitutes, this is for you.

This is about what it takes to wake up. To see clearly. To choose the hard road when every instinct is telling you to run.

And about the moment when God showed up at my window, and I finally broke.

Napa

Jess had made her decision to stay in the marriage and work on healing together. What’s crazy is that I was still wanting a divorce. Our pastor asked me to stick with it and agree to work together for at least six months.

Six months of seeing each other. Six months of forced praying together. Six months of torturous conversations. Six months of, with all our strength, might, and hope, forcefully putting Jesus at the center.

So I did. I agreed.

During those six months, the structure of our healing was relentless, beginning with our pastor’s advice that we step away from the congregation for a season. I was in weekly one-on-one therapy. Jess and I met with our pastor and his wife every week for marriage counseling. We were given readings, discussion topics, and homework assignments. We attended a marriage conference. We worked through years of unresolved marital problems. And we began the slow, painful work of establishing new boundaries, new expectations, and a new foundation.

I was still convinced that our marriage was a mistake. I still had those feelings that my home wasn’t my home. I still felt like I was living in a place that was foreign to me, like I wasn’t supposed to be there.

We put Jesus back at the center with no real expectations, just the posture of “let’s see what happens.”

Early on, It was really difficult for Jess. She couldn’t look at me without being flooded by traumatic flashbacks that showed up physically — tears, shaking, her body reacting before her words could catch up. A song. A picture. A random thought. Any of it could trigger waves of emotion we had to stop and talk through in real time.

Before the world shut down, there was a small window of time right after my fall.

Our pastor sent us to a marriage conference. Since this was an urgent time, we took the soonest available date and the most reasonable location: Napa Valley, California.

We took the long drive from Southern California to Northern California. And something unexpected happened.

Yes, the drive was bleak. Quiet. Awkward.

But we were on the road for hours. And pretty soon, we started listening to our favorite road trip songs. We talked. We kept it mild. We both knew there was more to be said, but we both also knew that we were going to a marriage conference to do exactly that.

I thought we would be arguing the entire time. Or that she would be crying all the way to Napa.

But it wasn’t like that at all.

It was like we both were agreeing on how sad this situation was. There was no anger. Just grief. And maybe — just maybe — the faintest willingness to see if something could be salvaged.

I was confused. I wasn’t determined to end the marriage, but I was convinced I had married the wrong person for all the reasons I laid out in earlier posts. And still, I was open to the possibility that I was wrong. If I was wrong, then the real question wasn’t who I married, but why I felt this way at all, and whether it was possible for those feelings to change.

During the conference, we both took it seriously.

When two hungry people arrive at a buffet of knowledge and wisdom, there’s a different level of intent.

We took copious notes. We took every activity seriously. The speakers were amazing. And we gained a tremendous amount of hope.

At night in our hotel room, there wasn’t much romance. It was still awkward. But we talked through our assignments, listened to one another, and prayed together. Sleep didn’t come easily, our minds raced, questions surfaced, and old traumas were quietly triggered in the dark.

The conference was only two days, but those two days (because we were both so eager, so desperate) felt like a semester at a university.

We absorbed everything. We didn’t miss a word. We didn’t dismiss a single exercise as too simple or too idealistic. We were past the point of pride. We were in survival mode.

I saw Jess engage with me, not out of obligation, but out of genuine desire to understand. To rebuild. She was ready to see a miracle.

By the end of the conference, I committed myself to figuring this out as honestly as I could. We wrote notes to each other and made real commitments. When it was over, we realized we still had half a day, and that we were in Napa. Curious, and finally comfortable enough, we agreed to explore. We walked, shared a meal, and for the first time in a while…

We had fun.

Tone Was Set

Two days after the conference, Jess woke me up, and told me: “You’re not going to work today. You need to call in sick because I have more questions.”

And that pretty much set the tone for the weeks ahead.

We had lunch together every day. And it wasn’t like I was around the corner. But it mattered, it was important.

Anytime Jess called, I answered. Not because she demanded it, but because I knew she needed it. Because in those early days, every unanswered call felt like abandonment to her. Every missed moment felt like I was choosing something, or someone, else over her again.

So I answered. Every time.

Every night, we prayed together and utilized the tools we learned during the conference.

Jess shared one particular Bible verse with me:

So that’s what she did.

Not just think them. But write them.

We shared notes about thoughts we had throughout the day. Questions. Any type of positive thing we noticed. Like, “You asked how my day was.” “You made me coffee this morning.” “You responded to me in a nice way.”

She wrote down all the ways I showed love toward her.

At first, the list was painfully short. Some days, there was only one thing. Some days, nothing at all.

But slowly, the list grew.

Not because I suddenly became a better husband overnight, but because she was choosing to look for the light in the rubble. She was choosing to notice. To acknowledge. To give credit where credit was due, even when it would have been easier to keep score of my failures.

And that discipline, that intentional practice of meditating on what was true, noble, pure, and lovely, began to shift something in both of us.

It didn’t erase the pain. It didn’t undo the betrayal.

But it gave us something to build on.

The Lockdown

The pandemic hit, and the world shut down.

We were on lock down for 9 months with strict stay at home orders. Now I had nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide.

Just me, Jess, our son, and all the wreckage between us. Forced into a small two-bedroom condo with the person I had hurt most. With the life I had destroyed. With the shame I couldn’t escape.

We were forced into our home during a time when we both felt very uncomfortable being home. That forced us to deal with our problems. Our home is humble and small, so there wasn’t anywhere we could hide from our issues.

We were left with one option and only one option: each other.

Talking became something we knew we had to do. We talked about everything. The past wounds. The present damage. The fears that surfaced without warning.

Whenever a thought crept into Jess’s mind, we stopped whatever we were doing and talked about it.

If she needed to tell me how deeply I had hurt her or how angry she was, how much she hated what I had done, she had the freedom to do that at any moment.

If she needed distance, I gave it.
If she needed closeness, I showed up.
If she changed her mind, I had to remain flexible and gracious.

Whatever she needed in order to process and heal, my role was to be there.

Sometimes she needed to vent.
Sometimes she needed answers.
Sometimes she wanted a response.
And sometimes she needed me to sit silently and absorb the weight of her pain.

Whatever it was, I accepted it.

Even though at the time, I wasn’t sure I wanted to stay married, I felt disgust at my choices.

She never physically hurt me, even though there were moments I thought I deserved it.

I deserved anger. I deserved shame. I deserved to be confronted, to be yelled at. I deserved to be un-loved

This is where I believe the pandemic was strangely helpful. We had nowhere to go and nothing else to distract us from what was broken. There was no escaping the conversations that needed to happen.

Day or night, rain or shine, we were home—together. On lockdown.

I believe it accelerated the process for us. What might have taken years to work through was compressed into months. Not because there was less pain, but because the same hours that would have been spread thin over time were forced into close, uninterrupted proximity.

The world was falling apart. People were scared, locked in their homes, worried about the future.

But I wasn’t afraid of the virus. I was afraid I’d already lost everything that mattered. I was afraid I had already lost my world. While everyone wondered if life would ever be the same again. I already knew mine wouldn’t.

My desire to fight for my marriage grew, more and more every day.

My focus shifted from other people, to my family.

The pandemic, the lockdown, was wonderful for my family and for my marriage.

Our son was around two years old, and we had a blast together. I poured all my creativity and passion into him during this time. We made art. We played games. We built forts. We read books. We grew carrots. We did it all.

And somewhere in the middle of all that, in the middle of the fort-building and the dirt under our fingernails and the sound of my son’s laughter filling the small condo, something shifted.

Home started to feel like home again.

Not in the same way as before. Not the way it had felt when I was numb and distant and hiding.

In a new way.

The way it should have always been.

I was no longer a visitor in my own life. I was present. I was engaged. I was choosing to be there, not out of obligation, but because I wanted to be.

This was my family. This was my home. And for the first time in a long time, I felt like I belonged there.

Dating

At the 6-month mark, I was at a crossroads. Our pastor explained that after all the work we’d done and the time spent, it was time to decide. Are we walking together or walking apart?

Jess had every right to leave. But she chose to stay. She wanted her family. She wanted her husband to love her back.

She wanted to walk together with me in this marriage.

And so did I.

We had worked through some major issues. We talked about things we never talked about before, wounds we’d been carrying for years, resentments we’d buried, fears we’d never named out loud.

Six months in, we both felt that there was more here than just hurt. But we both felt: it wasn’t yet time to call it quits.

Our pastor made it very clear: if we weren’t walking apart, then we were walking together. And in order to start walking together, it was time to rebuild from the ground up.

We had so many years of a life we had built together. So many memories, inside jokes, and history. All of it went up in flames.

We needed to start from scratch.

So we were asked to do something that felt impossible at the time.

We were asked to start dating.

By now, the stay-at-home orders were lifting. Some places were beginning to open up again. The world was slowly coming back to life.

And we were being asked to do the same.

This didn’t happen overnight, and it wasn’t like either of us were excited to go through the awkwardness of a silent dinner. But we did it anyway.

Jess recalls getting dressed up for our first date and feeling unwanted. She was trying to look pretty for a man who had broken a sacred bond. She wrestled with feeling pathetic, thinking, “None of this will change his mind.”

We went to a small Italian restaurant. She sat there, very pregnant at this point, and we ate Italian food that wasn’t very good.

Not much was said.
Not much eye contact given.

It was very difficult at first and very uncomfortable. Yes, there were tears and arguments in public. As much as Jess tried to feel some joy, the memories wouldn’t let her.

But we kept showing up.

And at some point, things got better.

I said something that made her smile. I caught her laughing for the first time in a long time. She looked at me, and I saw something different in her eyes. Something that gave me sparks of hope.

And every laugh, every smile, every positive conversation—they were building blocks. One by one. Slowly. To the new life we were building.

We carved out time every Friday night to go out on a date. We budgeted a large amount of money so we could date like there’s no tomorrow.

We went everywhere, laughed hard, ate like kings, and intentionally built new memories.

Slowly, the good days started to outweigh the bad days. The flashbacks and trauma hit with less intensity.

This is how our marriage healing began. Two people willing to put Christ at the center and allow Him to work.

We rolled up our sleeves, heads down, and put our hands to the plow.

And our conversations went from pain and anger… to family and dreams.

The Deer

We kept dating. We kept working on our marriage and on our family. Our second son was born in the middle of the pandemic (I will post about this special moment later).

Eventually, we returned to church. The response was mixed, understandably so. Some people welcomed us with encouragement; others didn’t. A few people we had loved deeply and poured into met us with silence instead. That hurt.

But what hurt more was watching Jess endure it for no reason at all. This was my failure, not hers, yet some people turned their backs on her too. That became another battle. But this time, it was one we would face together. (More on this later too)

Then, one day, as I worked from home sitting at my desk, I leaned back in my chair and looked outside.

I saw a couple of deer outside enjoying the sun.

Where we live, this is not uncommon, but it had been a long time since I saw one and even longer this close to the house.

This next part of my story, only a handful of people will understand.

Seeing the deer reminded me of a very special time when my ministry life really took off. It was God showing me He was there and that He had heard my prayers. It was a symbol to me that God was with me.

Obviously, there is much more to that story, but it is irrelevant here.

The point is, God was telling me, again, that He is with me.

I cried over what happened.

This was the moment that I was fully released, the scales were dropped, and I was no longer blind.

I could finally see what I had done, and I was broken.

I cried quietly to myself because everyone else was in the living room, but I cried a lot.

I went to the bathroom to wash my face, and I couldn’t even look at myself in the mirror. This had been going on for a while now but I was just now realizing it.

I felt disgusted with myself. I hated myself. I didn’t even recognize myself.

But I realized that the numbness was gone, and I was flooded with emotion.

I cried and cried some more. I cried until my eyes were swollen and red, until my throat felt raw, until I was so dehydrated I literally felt thirsty. I couldn't control it. My body was shaking and I felt sick to my stomach.

The Writing

Something about the weight of that moment took me back to the day I confessed to the congregation, when my friend encouraged me to write.

He challenged me to take this moment of my life and write about it.

I remembered that conversation when I was overwhelmed with feeling and emotion, avoiding looking at myself in the mirror.

I walked back to my desk, pushed my work aside, and I wrote.

I was so compelled to write that it just poured out. It flowed effortlessly, and I allowed my thoughts, feelings, and emotions to rise to the surface.

I wrote down whatever came to mind with no particular plan or intent. I just wrote.

And what came out was a poem.

A raw, broken, honest poem.

Next post, I’m sharing what I wrote.

The poem that captured everything I was feeling in that moment. The shame. The weight. I titled it:

The Man In The Mirror

If you’re struggling right now—if you’re spiritually dry, emotionally exhausted, hiding something, or reaching for a substitute—there is still hope.

Don’t wait until you cross a line to get help. The time to act isn’t after the collapse. It’s in the drift.

Reach out. Confess. Get help. Walk the dark pathways before they walk you off a cliff.

—Josh
@anotherwayfamily

P.S. If you missed Part 1 or Part 2, catch up here: Part 1 | Part 2. And if you’re not subscribed yet, subscribe here—it’s free.

This post is about what happened when I crossed the line. I’m sorry it took me so long to share this, but it’s extremely heavy for me to talk about. I hate this story. It disgusts me.

I’m only telling it for the one person out there who is struggling like I was, for the pastor and the marriage that might see themselves in my story. For the leader who feels trapped and terrified. For the couple out there hanging by a thread.

If this story can save him, or save them, then it’s worth it.

Take a deep breath… and buckle up.

I Fell

I was completely blind. I never saw this coming.

The lies had taken root. My mind and heart were completely vulnerable. I was so spiritually dry, so deep into thinking my marriage was wrong, that it didn’t take much for me to fall.

All it took was a little attention from the opposite sex.

I fell.
I betrayed my wife.

I kept the affair a secret. For a short time, I thought I could hide it. I thought no one would ever know. In retrospect, I have no idea what I was thinking. But at the time, I was convinced I could manage it.

But my pastor knew something was up. He knew I was completely out of character. He noticed some of my recent phone activity and brought it to my attention.

That’s when I admitted it.

Messages on my phone. Evidence I couldn’t deny. The secret I thought I could bury came to light.

I had to confess to my wife. My pregnant wife. She was carrying our second son while I was betraying her. I know.. this adds an extra layer of contempt poured on me.

Even though the setup by the enemy was real, even though my upbringing was not the best, even though there were issues in our marriage…

it is nobody’s fault but mine.

I chose to do what I did.
I made the choice.

We always have a choice, and God always gives us an out. I made the biggest, most regrettable mistake of my life.

The Ultimatum

I told Jess. I told her the truth. Sitting there on our couch, her face changed as my words reached her and tore through her soul. That image has never left me. It’s burned in my eyelids so I carry it even into my sleep.

This was the first time Satan’s grip on me began to loosen. My hard heart began to soften. It was the first spark of me realizing what I had done.

Jess had an ultimatum, a decision to make: to stay with me or to leave me.

She was pregnant with our second child and had to decide whether to raise him in a broken home or try to rebuild.

The line I crossed wasn’t just physical, it was spiritual, covenantal. I had broken the most sacred vows known on this side of heaven. I had breached the walls of our safety, and she had every right to want to leave.

My pastor and his wife stayed by our side. They walked through this darkness with us. We agreed to meet weekly.

Jess searched through her Bible. She scoured her resources, looking for answers and perhaps even a glimmer of hope.

I remember her asking our pastor in the darkest hour of this story:

“Isn’t there a book out there that you know of that deals with this kind of stuff? Some sort of success story? I really need a success story! I need to hear about a pastor and his wife who had this happen and they came out of it!”

My pastor hung his head and said, “There isn’t.”

This was crushing to witness, and all I could do was sit there.

I could feel Satan’s demonic power over me loosen even more.

Shame and guilt set in. An indescribable amount of shame, guilt, and regret set in.

The Bewitchment

Satan’s grip was loosening. I knew I had done something terrible. As painful as this is to admit, I still believed my marriage was wrong. I was still bewitched.

I knew, even then, that what I was doing wasn’t right. Still, I fought hard to prove it wasn’t entirely wrong. The affair was wrong, but my marriage felt like a mountain of problems I no longer wanted to climb. I had crossed the line, but I was still trying to justify standing on the other side of it.

I built up my case in my mind and heart. I dug up all the issues we’d ever had, past, present, and even imagined future problems. I heaped all of my reasons and excuses at the center and submitted a huge pile of complaints.

That’s all they were: complaints that my marriage wasn’t perfect.

Complaints, no matter how mountainous they become, will never justify betrayal.

I turned the pages of Scripture to find holes in God’s words on marriage. I was looking to not be held accountable. I was determined to find a loophole, some way to have God bless my desire for divorce.

In the quiet of the night, I wrestled with the excuses I had in my heart. I blamed everything and everyone. Perhaps not out loud, but in my heart.

When I couldn’t find any release from Scripture, I shut the Bible closed.

My pride had set in.

I became angry with God for allowing this to happen. I refused to open the Bible because I kept getting what I didn’t want to hear.

There was no escape from what I was feeling. And there was no escape from my problems.

Stripped

I had to sit with my senior pastor to go over all the ministries I was involved in so I could be pulled from them and allow the church to tend to the needs and gaps that would be left in my absence. My pastor was stripping me of my responsibilities and releasing me of my duties as an overseer and pastor, so we had to go through all that I was in charge of.

I was teaching in the young adults ministry once a week.
I was teaching youth once a week.
I was teaching in the main service every once in a while.
I was meeting with a group of community faith leaders about twice a month.
I was meeting with the pastoral staff once a week.
I was discipling a couple of young guys and we’d meet once a week.
I was doing couples counseling with a couple thinking of marriage about twice a month.

Peppered everywhere were special projects: youth retreat meetings, outreach meetings, mission trip meetings, leadership meetings.

I also had my own secular job. I had just switched careers from a mental health counselor to working in higher ed, meeting with different campuses and going to different high schools and their students. I was learning a new role with an open office from 8-5.

My entire calendar was full.

I left no time for my wife.
I left no time for my 2-year-old son.

This was the first time I realized that something wasn’t right with the way I was doing ministry. Going from such a busy schedule to doing nothing, all of a sudden having all this free time, was a huge shock.

My mind was still racing with ministry, but my hands were now tied.

The Stage

I had already confessed my moral failure to Jess. That alone had shattered me. Owning it and truly accepting what I had done was one of the hardest things I’ve ever faced.

But now… I had to confess it to the entire church. This was my responsibility as a pastor. I needed to do this. I had to confess my sins to not only my wife, my family, and my wife’s family… but my church family as well. I had to do what was right and bring it into the light.

I walked up on stage, this time with no notes, no Bible, and no encouragement to give.

I was terrified.

The sanctuary was full of wonderful, unsuspecting people. People who had trusted me. People who had cheered me on, prayed for me, and welcomed my family into their lives.

But this time, I wasn’t walking up to deliver a message from God.

I was walking up to break their hearts.

I don’t even remember the exact words I said. But I’ll never forget the feeling.

It’s embarrassing to fall in front of a room full of people. It’s humiliating to fall flat on your face. It’s shameful to fall face-first, in the mud, break your nose, bust your teeth, by your choosing.

Shame.
The full weight of the word.
It crushed me as I stood there, trembling, covered in the filth of what I’d done.

I saw people bow their heads. I saw some wipe away tears. I felt the air leave the room as I sobbed, and with everything in me, managed to utter the words: “I’m sorry.”

Nothing prepares you for the kind of weight that hits when you realize: this pain… is because of you.

The failure.
The heartbreak.
The damage.
It all rests on your shoulders.

People talk about hitting rock bottom.
But this wasn’t just rock bottom.
This was under the rock that was at the bottom.
Cold. Heavy. Suffocating.

I didn’t move.
I didn’t fight.
I didn’t try to clean myself up.
I couldn’t feel God.
I couldn’t feel hope.

All I could feel was weight, a thick, crushing sorrow that sat on my chest and refused to lift.

I just stayed there.

There was so much pain, I didn’t know where to begin. So much regret, I couldn’t even speak. I was stunned. Broken. Immobilized.

Whatever I said, it was enough to get the point across. As Jess and I walked off that stage, a pastor friend met us in the back to escort us out.

He thanked me.

He thanked me for doing this and taking the difficult road to redemption. He said most people would deflect, blame, or just move to another church. But I didn’t. I stood there and owned it.

Then he asked me a question:

“Do you journal?”

I said, “No.”

He looked at me and said, “You really should right now.”

I didn’t understand why at the time. But those words stuck with me.

Staying at My Mom’s

I moved in with my mom.

I was away from Jess. Away from my son. With less on my plate, I was alone with my thoughts.

In the quiet and in the stillness, and even with my Bible closed, I slowly started to wake up.

I wish I could tell you this was the moment everything turned around. But it wasn’t. I was lost. I was confused. The days blurred together. I went to work. I came home to my mom’s apartment. I slept on a small, uncomfortable bed. My mom was sad for me and heartbroken over my marriage. She saw history repeating.

She lived alone in a small apartment in the middle of my old hometown that is not exactly known for its charm. We once had a nice house in a better part of town, but all that crumbled in a similar way. My dad had been unfaithful. They divorced. He spiraled, and eventually ended up in prison for seven years. That’s a long story in itself, but the point is: my dad had only recently gotten out. He was renting a room and dealing with a lot himself. He helped as much as he could but at the time there wasn’t much he could offer practically. No space to take me in, no resources to spare. And I needed him. He’s my best friend.

My mom did everything she could to support me. She took me in without hesitation and tried to talk with me. She prayed for me, for my marriage, for my son, for the pregnancy. She helped in every way that was appropriate. But I needed both of them. I see that now.

When I told my dad, he looked sad. Disappointed. Not in me, necessarily. I think I know what he was thinking: he was disappointed that Satan got me the same way Satan had gotten him. Maybe not in exactly the same way, but from how things looked at the time, it felt like the same outcome.

He was also heartbroken that he couldn’t do more for me in that moment. Still, he told me he trusted the Lord, and that God would see me through. It was strange to hear that from him because he never talked like that before, but prison had become a place where he started to discover God for himself.

My parents were kind. Gentle. Prayerful. But both knew, this was my battle to fight.

Alone

I had betrayed Jess. I wounded my church. I broke the trust of people who had looked to me for spiritual guidance, for leadership, for comfort, for truth. I shattered whatever integrity I had built.

I hated myself. I couldn’t stand to look in the mirror. I felt like everything good in my life had died, and I died with it.

The shame. The heaviness. The stench of failure. The internal voice that whispered, “You’re done. You’re disgusting. You’ll never get up from this,” echoed in the silence.

Normally, when life felt heavy, I had people. I had friends, fellow pastors, other brothers in Christ. We’d meet up, jump on a call, talk it out. At the end, we’d pray together. Tell each other, “It’s not as bad as it feels.” Give each other bible verses and the kind of pat-on-the-back encouragement that helps you keep going:

“Hang in there, bro. This will pass. God’s got you.”

But this time… that wasn’t an option.

There was no call to make.
No one to text.
No prayer circle.
No one who could tell me “it’s going to be okay.”

Because it wasn’t.

Not my mom. Not my dad. Even talking to Jess wasn’t an option. She was reeling, and rightfully so. She was considering divorce. She was processing betrayal. She was carrying pain I put on her shoulders.

She didn’t deserve any of it.

So why would she talk me through this? Why would she comfort me? I had taken everything from her, and she had every right to leave.

So I was left with… no one.

No best friends.
No ministry partners.
No one checking in.

Maybe I could talk to God?

Even that felt impossible. Shallow. Hollow. Useless.

Why would God want to hear from me? Why would He want to walk through this with the man who caused so much damage?

I had no connection. No comfort. No brotherhood.

I couldn’t pray.
I had no hope…

The Hero

But with God… there’s always hope.

I am not the hero of this story. Jesus is.

Jesus in Jess, is the real hero of this story.

For reasons I could not understand, Jess decided to stay and give it a try.

We met with our pastor after some time passed and the ultimatum was brought up. It was time to decide. Is it worth staying and fighting, with so much work to go through? With a husband who still isn’t even fully convinced of this marriage either? Is it worth sifting through the ashes and rebuilding a new home? Or is it time to depart?

Jess, pregnant with our second son, said some of the bravest and mightiest words I have ever heard in my entire life:

She didn’t decide to stay because she was so in love with me. She didn’t decide to stay because of the kids.

She decided to stay because she trusted the Lord. Because all she wanted to do with her life was to bring honor and glory to God.

I was speechless.

In the darkness of this pit, I thought I saw something. I saw a tiny flicker. I saw a tiny spark. I saw the smallest evidence of what one might call… hope.

Under strict parameters and with constant supervision from my pastor, I was invited back home. To work on our problems. Fix what is broken. To find what was lost.

There we stood. Two strangers. Staring at Mount Everest. Unsure if we would make it. Doubtful that we would make it.

We rolled up our sleeves. And started climbing. Together.

Then...

And then... Everything shut down.

The world went on lockdown.

Schools closed. Businesses closed. Churches closed. Everyone was told to shelter in place.

The pandemic hit.

Everyone was scared. Except I wasn’t. How could I be? I was already dead.

Now I had nowhere to run.
Nowhere to hide.

Just me, Jess, our son, and all the wreckage between us.

Forced into a small condo with the person I had hurt most. With the life I had destroyed. With the shame I couldn’t escape.

Next post: What happened when I couldn’t run anymore.

If you’re struggling right now, if you’ve already crossed a line or you’re close to it—there is still hope. It’s not too late. But don’t wait. Reach out. Confess. Get help.

The pain of honesty is nothing compared to the devastation of exposure.

—Josh
@anotherwayfamily

P.S. If you missed Part 1, read it here. And if you’re not subscribed yet, make sure you don’t miss Part 3. Subscribe here—it’s free.

How does that even happen?

I used to ask it too, until I became the answer.

This isn’t a post about the details of my sin. Those belong to the people who were hurt and to the grace of God that covered it. This is about something more important: the drift that made it possible.

Because the real question isn’t what happened. It’s how it ever could.

No One Plans to Burn Their House Down

No one wakes up one morning and decides to destroy everything. No one sets out to wreck something they’ve poured their heart into—something good, something meaningful, something sacred.

Who in their right mind would randomly choose to light their own house on fire?

That would be crazy.

As someone who seemingly did just that, I agree with you.

Yet we see this kind of thing happen over and over again. Why?

I can’t speak for everyone. Each story is different. Every fall has its own details, trauma, and context. I want to be careful not to paint with too broad a brush.

But I can speak for myself.

And while I refuse to make excuses, for myself or anyone else who commits this kind of sin, I also believe it’s worth exploring the layers beneath the surface.

Not to justify.
Not to minimize.
But to understand.

There are things worth examining. Things that may not offer “answers,” at least not the satisfying kind. But they might offer insight, a glimpse into the kind of fertile soil where lies can take root.

It Starts Quietly

It starts quietly, with exhaustion that looks like devotion.

You say yes to every need, every meeting, every crisis. The phone never stops. The texts come at all hours. “Pastor, can you come pray?” “Pastor, can you meet with this couple tonight?” “Pastor, there’s an emergency with the youth.” And you go. Of course you go. That’s what shepherds do, right?

You stop hearing your own soul.

Your calendar easily fills up with everyone else’s needs. Young Adults on Wednesday. Youth on Thursday. Pastoral meetings on Monday. Counseling sessions scattered throughout the week. Sunday prep. Sunday service. Sunday recovery. And in my case, all while still having a normal secular 9-5.

You tell yourself this is what it means to be faithful. To be called. To be anointed. And all around you are spiritual juggernauts that are doing even more than you, without complaint, without missing a step, casually doing what is needed.

But somewhere in the chaos, you stop asking yourself basic questions:
When was the last time I prayed—really prayed—not just prepared a sermon?
When was the last time I read Scripture for my own soul, not for someone else’s benefit?
When was the last time I sat in silence with God and heard Him speak?

The answer? You can’t remember.

You start measuring worth by usefulness. By how many people you helped that week. By how full the sanctuary was. By how many lives you touched. By how many young adults showed up. By how effective the ministry looked from the outside.

And it worked. The ministry grew. Programs expanded. Lives were changed. People were baptized. The church was thriving.

But the man inside… it was shrinking.

I remember driving home from our mid-week young adult nights, physically exhausted but emotionally numb. I’d preached a powerful message. I’d prayed over people. I’d counseled a couple after service. I’d encouraged volunteers. I’d answered a dozen questions in the lobby.

And I’d go home feeling... empty.

I couldn’t name it then, but I can now: My heart was busy doing things for God but not with Him.

I was running on fumes. I was drawing from a well that had run dry. I was giving away something I didn’t have anymore.

That difference seems small at first. You convince yourself it’s just a season. You tell yourself things will slow down after this event, after this series, after this session. But they never do. And the gap between who you are on stage and who you are at home gets wider and wider.

The scary part? No one notices. Not even you.

Because exhaustion that looks like devotion gets praised. Burnout that looks like faithfulness gets applauded. And the church (bless them) they think you’re thriving.

Until you’re not.

The Lie

Into that exhaustion, the enemy whispered a sentence so simple it sounded harmless:

“You don’t love your wife.”

My wife and I didn’t have the best beginning. We met in high school, and that’s probably the only part of our story that sounds cute. The rest? Not something we’d ever hold up as a model for dating or marriage.

And let me be clear: that’s on me, not Jess (my wife).

If there was a problem in those early years, it was mostly me.

The way we ended up married isn’t something you’d find in a fairytale or a marriage seminar. We were two lost souls with no real understanding of God’s design for marriage. We didn’t know what Scripture said about dating, sex, covenant, any of it. We only started discovering those truths years after we were already married.

And even though I was reckless in my youth, we thought we were being wise by waiting until after college to get married. But the time in between, those high school and early college years, was chaos. Real, painful, immature chaos.

That season was filled with unnecessary drama, hurt, and decisions I’m still ashamed of. Honestly, it’s hard to talk about, because remembering who I was to Jess back then still stings. The kind of boyfriend I was. The ways I failed her before we ever said “I do.”

(And spoiler: that shame would come back around later in our marriage.)

The lie that crept into my mind wasn’t some supernatural spell. It wasn’t dramatic. It wasn’t even original.

It was simple.

A lie that’s been whispered to men for generations, used by the enemy over and over again because... it works.

It didn’t come wrapped in darkness. It came when I was weak. Tired. Frustrated. When my guard was down and my soul was dry.

And it found fertile soil: years of unresolved hurt, poor communication, and a marriage held together more by partnership than by intimacy.

The Fertile Soil

We had been struggling with physical intimacy for a long time.

It was as if the enemy had done everything in his power to push us into sex before marriage, and then everything he could to keep us from it afterward.

It felt like a switch flipped the day we said “I do.”

What had once been frequent and effortless became distant... then absent. We went from struggling to wait, to barely connecting at all. The bedroom that was supposed to be a place of safety and freedom became a minefield of unspoken expectations and quiet disappointments.

Over time, the lack of intimacy created a growing tension in me, a quiet frustration I didn’t know how to name, let alone resolve. It wasn’t just physical desire, though that was part of it. It was the feeling of being unknown. Unseen. The growing sense that something fundamental was missing, and I had no idea how to ask for it or even if I had the right to.

Here’s what made it worse: I was leading others. Teaching on marriage. Counseling couples. And I couldn’t even address what was happening in my own bedroom.

I didn’t bring it up. I didn’t ask for help.

I just withdrew.

Maybe I thought it would get better on its own. Maybe I was afraid of being vulnerable, of appearing needy or weak, especially as a leader who was supposed to have it together.

Slowly, I began to grow cold toward Jess. I was emotionally unavailable to her. The conversations that used to energize me now felt like obligations. The little moments of connection, a look across the room, a hand on her back, the sharing of our days—all of it felt like too much effort for too little return. We became roommates who happened to share a last name and a bank account.

And I kept showing up to lead. Kept preaching. Kept counseling. Kept performing the role while dying on the inside.

What I didn’t realize then (but see so clearly now) is that intimacy and connection are cyclical. Emotional closeness fuels physical intimacy. Physical intimacy deepens emotional connection. They feed each other, building momentum like a flywheel. When both are present and healthy, they create something greater than the sum of their parts: a marriage that feels alive.

But when that cycle breaks, and when it stays broken long enough, it becomes dangerous.

The absence of one starves the other. Physical distance makes emotional vulnerability feel impossible. Emotional disconnection makes physical intimacy feel mechanical or even repulsive. The flywheel stops. The cycle breaks.

And for us, it had broken.

We were caught in a downward spiral, each of us waiting for the other to make the first move, to bridge the gap that had grown between us. Neither of us knew how to break the pattern. Neither of us had the tools or the courage to name what was happening.

Everything Looked Fine

What’s crazy is that, on the outside, everything looked fine… even to us.

At the time, we could’ve stacked our marriage up against anyone’s. We worked well together. We attended conferences together. We served side by side. We often won couples games at church events. People looked at us and saw partnership, unity, effectiveness. We just didn’t understand how critical our situation really was. And maybe that’s the most dangerous place to be…

…doing well enough that you don’t realize you’re dying.

We made great partners. We were effective in ministry. We genuinely cared about people and served them with our whole hearts. The fruit was real. The impact was measurable. People were encountering God through our leadership.

We were quick to respond, like spiritual first responders, at the first sign of crisis in the flock. My phone was always on. Our home was constantly open to guests. Day and night, we were in conversation with youth and young adults about their walk with the Lord. We canceled date nights to counsel couples. We stayed up late to answer texts from struggling believers. We said yes to every opportunity to pour out.

If you’re in ministry, you know this rhythm. You know how easy it is to confuse exhaustion with faithfulness. How the urgency of other people’s needs can feel like obedience when it’s actually avoidance.

But all of it masked what was really going on in our marriage.

The ministry wasn’t a cover-up, it was genuine. But it became a functional substitute for the intimacy I was unwilling to fight for at home. Every “yes” to someone else’s crisis was a quiet “no” to addressing my own.

We were no longer moving toward each other in any meaningful way. And that gap created the perfect opening for the enemy’s lies to take root.

“You don’t love your wife.”

I believed that lie.

I allowed my thoughts to entertain the idea, and I believed it. Not all at once, it started as a whisper, a question, a moment of doubt. But I let it linger. I examined it. I turned it over in my mind instead of bringing it immediately into the light.

And once you believe a lie, you start building theology around it. You twist truth to make room for the story you want to live. You find Scripture and force it into the narrative that support your position. You reinterpret your history through the lens of your current dissatisfaction.

“It was a mistake.”
“I don’t love her.”
“I married the wrong person.”
“I settled.”

These are the thoughts that haunted me, thoughts I entertained when I refused to take them captive to the Lord. When I stopped trusting His sovereign plan for my life. When I avoided the hard work of facing my marriage honestly.

The sin that destroyed me didn’t begin with lust… It began with agreement

Agreement with a lie about who God is, who Jess was, and who I was. It began with a thought I should have rejected but instead welcomed in, gave a seat at the table, and eventually made decisions around.

Ministry as Mistress

Long before the affair, I had already been unfaithful.

Ministry became my mistress.

The place I ran to for affirmation, identity, and escape. It gave me everything a mistress gives: validation, distraction, a sense of being needed and valued. It accepted me as I am and didn’t ask for change.

Busyness became my hiding place to avoid my own heart. I filled every hour so there was no silence left for conviction to speak. I scheduled coffee meetings with guys I was discipling but couldn’t remember the last time Jess and I went on date. I spent hours crafting sermons about intentional presence while being emotionally absent at home.

I wore my exhaustion like a badge of honor. I believed the lie that if I was tired, I must be faithful. That if people needed me, I must be effective. That if ministry was growing, God must be pleased.

I was spiritually dry, emotionally detached, and proud of my productivity.

That’s all the enemy needed: a dry branch ready to catch fire.

And in that pit of shame, I finally saw the truth:
I had traded intimacy with God for performance, and intimacy with Jess for a lie. The collapse was no one’s fault but mine. I am not the victim.

Not ministry pressure.
Not broken systems.
Not my upbringing.
I made the choice.
I crossed the line.
And I own it fully.

What happened to me can happen to any leader.

The Warning Signs We Ignore

Pride. Isolation. Fatigue. Hidden wounds.

They grow quietly, especially in ministry, but not only in ministry. They hide behind performance, behind competence, behind a smile and a full calendar and the appearance of having it all together.

And if you don’t guard against them, they will take you out.

Not dramatically. Not all at once. But steadily, gradually, until one day you look up and realize you’re standing somewhere you swore you’d never be.

If you’re leading and feel empty, listen to that emptiness. If you’re hiding, confess before you’re caught, not because exposure is inevitable, but because freedom is possible. If you’re tired, stop pretending you can carry it all alone. Find someone safe and tell the truth.

The devil doesn’t need you to fall spectacularly; he just needs you to stop abiding. He doesn’t need a dramatic moral failure; he just needs you disconnected enough, dry enough, lonely enough that when the moment comes, you’ll reach for something, anything, that promises relief.

I don’t share this for pity or shock. I share it because someone reading this is exactly where I was. You’re functioning, leading, serving…. and dying inside. You think you’re the exception, that it won’t happen to you, that you can manage it on your own. If that’s you, if you’re reading this and you lead others, if you preach, counsel, disciple, I need you to hear this: your marriage matters more than your ministry. I know that might be hard to hear and even harder to live out. But its true.

I’m not who I was. I’m still learning, still healing, still facing the mirror and doing the hard work of rebuilding trust, with God, with Jess, with myself.

But I’m alive. My marriage is alive. My family is alive.

And the same grace that exposed me also rebuilt me.

Next Post: The Line

I believed the lie. I entertained it. I built a theology around it.

And then... I crossed the line.

Next post, we’ll talk about what happens when belief became action. When the drift became the fall.

If you’re drifting right now, if you recognize any part of this story, please don’t wait until you cross a line to get help.

The time to act isn’t after the collapse.
It’s in the drift.

Coming up: Part 2 – The Line

If this resonated with you, forward it to someone who needs to read it. Share it with your leadership team. You never know who’s quietly heading toward the edge.

And if you’re not subscribed yet, make sure you don’t miss Part 2.

P.S. I’m working on a free resource for pastors and ministry leaders: 10 Warning Signs You’re Heading Toward Burnout (That I Missed). Comment or reply ‘YES’ if you want it when it’s ready.

—Josh
@anotherwayfamily

Honestly, I’m grateful for all of it. But I’m also a little haunted by it.

Because this table, and all the noise, the people around it, the grace it represents, it almost didn’t happen.

My past still can cast a shadow of shame over the holidays. I made choices that nearly cost me everything.
Marriage. Family. Ministry. Reputation.

The reason I started sharing my story here on Substack is because, at its core, it’s a resurrection story that needs to be told. Thanksgiving has become less about turkey and more about remembering what God brought back from the ashes.

This year, our family is heading to an Airbnb to celebrate Sukkot, a Jewish festival that’s become deeply meaningful to us. In that space, surrounded by nature and stillness, I’ll be anointing our second son, Jonah. I will be proclaiming that he is set apart for the Lord. He belongs to God. His life, his calling, his future, it’s all surrendered to Him.

This tradition didn’t come from nowhere. It was born from months of reflection, deep and sometimes painful reflection, about family, fatherhood, Jesus, and what it means to live intentionally.

I’ve found that I now look forward to events like this because they are surrounded in memories and meaning that we’re building all around them. The why behind it all matters so much more than it used to.

And I feel incredibly blessed.
Because none of this would be possible, if it weren’t for the redeeming work of the Lord.

“Let the redeemed of the Lord tell their story…”
—Psalm 107:2

That’s what I’m trying to do here.

I’m still learning how to use Substack. Still figuring out how often to post, what rhythm works for my soul and for you, the readers. I think most of what you’ll see here will fall into two buckets:

1. Our family’s life now, living slower, raising chickens, homeschooling, and trying to do life together on mission.

2. And the story behind it, the long, painful road of failure, grief, repentance, and healing.

It’s important to me to tell the truth about what happened before this life we’re living now was even possible. I also think it’s important to see the beauty that came from ashes. Next month, I will go deeper into the before… Today, I just need to name the grace.

I need to say thank you.

Because as I sit in our small condo, the same one I once paced back and forth in during sleepless nights, wondering if my marriage would survive, I can’t help but remember how far we’ve come. This year, Thanksgiving is about acknowledging all the good things in your life. It is also about recognizing the miracles I didn’t deserve.

• A wife who stayed when she didn’t have to.

• Four boys who want to climb on me and wrestle me.

• Mentors who didn’t flinch when the worst part of me came to light.

• A God who didn’t discard me when I failed Him.

• And a God who not only restored me, but redirected me.

“He brought me up from the pit of destruction,
out of the miry clay,
and He set my feet upon a rock,
making my footsteps firm.”
—Psalm 40:2

A Word for the One Who’s Struggling Right Now

If the holidays feel heavy this year, If you feel like your marriage is in shambles, and you are facing a hopeless situation. I want you to know, you’re not alone.

I know what it’s like to sit in silence while everyone else seems to be celebrating. I know what it’s like to smile through pain, to carry shame, to feel like joy is something that belongs to other people. I’ve been there. And there were moments when I truly believed my life was over.

But I’m living proof that God meets people in the pit, not just on the mountaintop.
He came and found me in the middle of my collapse. He required that I surrender, that I confess, that I take responsibility, and that I roll up my sleeves and do the work.

And He began to rebuild what I had destroyed.

If you’re struggling this week, with grief, with regret, with depression, with guilt, with distance from God, with shame—just know this:

It’s not too late. You’re not too far gone.

God’s not done with your story.
He is still in the business of restoring lost things.
There is hope, even if you can’t feel it yet.

You may not be on the other side of it yet, but I believe one day you will be.
And when that day comes, your story (just like mine) will be filled with redemption.

You are not forgotten.
You are not invisible.
And even now, God is closer than you think.

You may have seen pastors or leaders fall, and wondered: How does that happen?
Next month, I’ll share more of that side of the story, the slow drift that led to a collapse, the lies I believed, the line I crossed, and how restoration even became possible. You won’t find gossip or a sensational version to make a spectacle. I’d never do that to such a serious thing. You will only read the truth as I lived it.

Because I know what it’s like to lead while hollow.
To keep up appearances while your soul is slowly unraveling.
To feel like your life is being lived from the outside in.

And I also know what it’s like to be met by grace in the exact place you thought God wouldn’t show up.

For now, as we head into this week, into the chaos of grocery lines, turkey prep, family dynamics, and kid meltdowns, can I just encourage you with this?

Too often, we rush to fix things before we’ve taken time to face them. We want a strategy, a plan, a way forward, and fast. But sometimes, the most important step isn’t figuring out what to do next. It’s slowing down long enough to actually acknowledge the story that’s already happened. The grief, the failure, the grace. The truth. Because real healing doesn’t start with a solution, it starts with honesty. Don’t rush past your story to get to your strategy. Let God meet you in the mess first. He’s not just in the plan; He’s in the process. Don’t skip over the miracle just to make the moment Instagram-worthy. Whatever’s at your table this year, grief, joy, hope, confusion, regret, laughter—bring it.

God isn’t scared of what you’re holding.
He’s inviting you to the table.

And I am grateful for that.

Because even in the rubble, God was already planting seeds.
Even in the silence, He was still speaking.
Even in the loss, He was preparing another way.

One step at a time.

Coming in December:

When news breaks of another pastor’s fall, we all ask the same question:
How does that even happen?

Next month, I’ll begin sharing my story. Im thinking of those who need to hear it. The tired, isolated leader. The young arrogant leader. The prideful pastor. The pastor who has crossed the line, or is thinking about it. The married couple who has been burned by infidelity. The newly weds who are starting to think “what have I done”. The believer who needs to know he’s not beyond redemption.

Until then—
May your table be full, even if your heart is still healing.

Grace and peace,
Josh
@anotherwayfamily

It was only a small sample of what I plan to share.

I’ll be going deeper into that journey soon. What it actually looked like to fall as a pastor. What it took to rebuild trust. What repentance and restoration looked like in real life with a real family and a broken heart. I’m ready to think out loud with you now. Thoughts I’ve carried for years feel ready to become a gift to those who need it, especially tired, overworked ministry leaders quietly carrying more than they can handle.

But before I go deeper into the collapse, I need to show you what all that pain and suffering gave birth to.
Because God didn’t just restore me to who I used to be, He redirected me entirely.

One of the biggest shifts?
Chickens.

This post isn’t really about farming or homesteading.

It’s about what happens when the life you thought you were building burns to the ground, and God hands you a shovel and says, “Let’s plant something new.”

In that silence, I started asking hard questions. I started listening.
And what God began to show me (what He convicted me of deeply) was how I had spent years giving my best time, energy, and gifts to everyone but my own family.

They got the leftovers.

During that season, I came across a book that shifted my entire framework:
Family Revision by Jeremy Pryor.

He described family not as a collection of individuals surviving under one roof, but as a team on mission, with a father intentionally leading, discipling, and creating rhythms that reflect God’s design. It was the language I didn’t know I needed. And it gave me permission to rethink everything.

I began to rediscover God’s definition of family.

That seed took root. And it’s grown into a life we never imagined, but can’t imagine walking away from. We started living slower and chose connection over busyness.

Now, when I go to a meeting, it’s not “Dad has to go serve.”
It’s “We’re sending Dad to do his part.”
Because our whole family is on mission.

And in the midst of all that, we started dreaming about living differently. We wanted space and more time together. We wanted to grow our own food. We wanted chickens!

Chickens… in a two-bedroom condo with four boys and a balcony you can’t even grill on? Makes zero sense. I know. But we were dreaming, and the desire to slow down, to root somewhere, to live a life that felt less divided and more whole, it wouldn’t go away.

So one day, almost on impulse, I randomly texted someone from our church, John, a retired lemon farmer, if we could raise chickens on his land.

John and I were already friends. We had partnered in ministry a few times, me as the young adults pastor, and him as someone with a heart to serve however he could. I’d been looking for a place to host summer bonfires and Bible studies, and John had the ranch, and it was an instant hit!

His heart was always to use what he had for the glory of God, and to be a blessing to others.

At that point, most of his land was quiet. The orchards were long gone.
All that remained was one orange tree, one lemon tree, an avocado tree… and an old, broken-down chicken coop.

I promised we’d do all the work. Feed them. Clean up. Everything.

He didn’t say no. But he didn’t say yes either.
Instead, he looked at me, smiled, and said:

“Chickens are a lot of work, Josh. Morning. Night. Every day.”

It was a loving reality check.

So I said thank you and left it alone.

A few days later, I got a text from John:

“Josh… you’re in so much trouble.”

I panicked.

”What? What did I do now?”

Turns out, John told his wife Linda about our conversation.
And now she wanted chickens, too.

Just like that, what had started as a long shot turned into a shared project. An old dream we hadn’t dared to pursue was now being revived by people who believed in what we were trying to build.

We spent the next several weekends clearing overgrown brush and repairing the weathered structure of the old coop. Rusted hinges were replaced, broken boards pulled off and nailed back into place. Our boys came along. We laughed, sweated, made mistakes, and figured it out together.

It was physical work, yes. But it was also spiritual. Restorative. Almost symbolic.

As we rebuilt that coop, something in me was being rebuilt too.

This wasn’t just about cheaper eggs (though I’ll admit that did come up during the egg price spike at the time).
It was about reclaiming something that had been lost.

It was about learning to live with margin again.
About letting presence matter more than productivity.
It was about doing something tangible with my sons that connected us to the land, to each other, and to the slow, sacred rhythm I had ignored for far too long.

Now, about 3 times a week, I collect eggs with my sons.
We clean the coop. We fill the feeder.
We laugh. We talk. We remember how we got here.

This isn’t about chickens.

It’s about faithfulness.

It’s about choosing another way, even when you don’t know where it’s headed.
It’s about believing that God can use your repentance to plant something better than you imagined.
It’s about discovering that the family you once neglected is actually the first and most sacred place to lead.

So here’s my encouragement:
I want to be clear: this life we’re living now wasn’t the result of a brilliant strategy.

It came after a collapse.
And the collapse was my fault.

I broke the trust of my wife, my church, and the people who looked to me for spiritual leadership. No ministry culture, no pressure, no circumstance made that choice for me. I own it completely.

And yet (even there) God met me.

Not with a quick fix, but with the long, refining work of restoration. What you’re seeing now is the fruit of that work, and the voice of a man who’s finally ready to talk about it. A man trying to live the truth, starting with his own household.

Don’t wait until your life is in order to ask a better question.
You don’t need a perfect plan. Or perfect land. Or a perfect past.
You just need a vision, a little courage, and the humility to ask:

“There’s gotta be another way.”

Because there is.
And sometimes, it starts with a chicken coop.

—

Coming soon:

I’ll share more of the story I’ve been carrying for years, what happened, what broke, and how its even possible for a pastor to end up in that dark of a place.

It’s the question I’ve wrestled with the most.

And I think it’s the one that needs to be answered, not just for me, but for every leader who’s drifting quietly toward collapse.

If this resonated, forward it to a friend.
Or leave a comment:
What dream has felt out of reach for you lately?
What would it look like to live another way?

—Josh
@anotherwayfamily

We live in a two-bedroom condo with four boys under the age of eight.
Not exactly the dream home, but a good starting point for a young, growing family.
And growing we are, we’re quickly running out of room.

This page is about that journey.

It’s about trying to live differently after you’ve lost more than you thought you could bear.
It’s about what happens after you disqualify yourself from the thing you thought you were made for.

The Fall, and the Turning Point

The fall happened. I made the biggest mistake of my life, and I lost everything.
After the dust settled, I found myself questioning everything. I had given my entire life, heart, and soul to ministry. I was a young up-and-coming pastor doing what I was intricately designed and called to do. Without it, I had no identity. I was empty, paralyzed, and completely lost.

Over time, I grieved. I faced the truth. I rebuilt my marriage. And eventually, I started to find my footing again.

As I slowly reentered life, God began to refocus me. I realized that all those years in ministry, I had poured out my gifts, talents, and energy for other people, but when it came to my own family, they got the leftovers.

That realization hit hard. It convicted me deeply.

I started reading. Listening. Praying. Rethinking everything.

And in that season, Jess and I began to say out loud what we had both been feeling in our hearts:
There’s gotta be another way.

That phrase became our turning point.

What we’re living now is what that conviction turned into.
A life where family truly comes first. No longer just a theory or something we say, but in practice and living it out.

My family is my first ministry.
I serve my wife and kids not just as a father or husband, but as a family team on mission.

We now homeschool our four boys.
We raise chickens with some church friends on a little borrowed land.
And yes, we still serve the Lord.
But this time, we serve Him together.

Why “Another Way”?

Because the old way, performance, platform, image, overwork—didn’t work.
Because burnout and moral failure aren’t rare anymore… they’re expected.
Because the cost was too high, and this time around, I want my home to be the central hub from everything I do.

This isn’t a how-to blog. I’m not a parenting guru. And as you might have guess, I have failed… terribly. My hope is that my story can be a warning sign for someone out there. Hopefully, this can be some sort of encouragement. I thought my life was over, as cheesy as it sounds, it was just the beginning.
This is a story in progress.

I’m Writing a Book.

It’s about the collapse, and what came after.
Not just my story, but a redemptive roadmap for other pastors, leaders, and believers who feel like they’re running on empty or quietly falling apart.

If that’s you, or someone you love, I’d love to bring you along.

You’ll hear more about the book here as it takes shape: chapters, ideas, behind-the-scenes, and reflection prompts.
You’ll also get our family’s story: the chickens, the homeschool co-op, the small wins, the hard days, and the things God is teaching us.

Coming next:

We Wanted Chickens. We Got Something Better.
(Yes, it includes a farmer named John and a text that said: “Josh… you’re in so much trouble.”)

If this sounds like the kind of life you’re trying to build too…
Stick around.
Subscribe. Share it with a friend. Comment if something resonates.

We don’t have it all figured out. But we’re building.
And we’d love to have you with us.

—Josh
@anotherwayfamily