Note to the reader: At the beginning of each year, I rerelease this exact same post. No revisions or edits outside of this introduction. Every year I reread it, I believe it more than the previous year. This is no different. I spent 9 days in Japan and came back changed in some of the best ways (more on that later). One way in particular was the need to slow down. I ended up buying a dip pen and ink and at the beginning of every journal, planner, or field notes book I have, I’m writing the same reminder. Slow Down. There is no Deadline for the person you’re becoming. As we start a new year, remember…January’s for reflecting, not resolving. This isn’t a race. There’s time to settle in. I hope you’ll feel the permission to do so. And if you’re read this post before, I hope you believe it more on the re-read. Peace.

Stay until the end….

I remember watching a post-credits movie scene for the first time. I think it was Iron Man. You know the vibe. The credits start rolling as everyone is brushing pop-corn kernels off their laps to the soundtrack of synchronized grunts from people in their 40’s (and beyond) attempting to stand. The large majority of the theater was making their way to the exit, seemingly in a rush to go somewhere.

But where? We were at the movies, and it was the last showing.

We were out.

This is where people intended to be, and the only other place to go after the movies was home. Most of the people had nowhere to be, yet they were in a rush.

It didn’t make any sense, but the collective energy was enough to pull me out of my seat towards the exit with the rest of the herd. Following the crowd felt so natural. So easy. I would’ve done it if I hadn’t heard the faint whisper of the white dude in glasses next to me.

Stay until the end…

I listened. Maybe it was because he had glasses and it was a comic book movie (and he looked like the type that would give you the backstory of the characters without taking a breath, his only pauses coming as he knuckled his glasses back up the bridge of his nose.)

There was more.

There was more. The movie wasn’t over yet. And that one scene, after an apparent conclusion, forever changed how I engaged with movies. I always stay until the end. I never form my conclusions until I see everything. Everything.

It’s been a little over two years since I made the decision to resign as a pastor after 16 years. My entire adult life (and more of my identity than I’d like to admit) was wrapped up in that job.

That title.

That position.

That calling.

December felt more like a series finale than a season finale, which made me hyper-aware of everything. I didn’t want to miss anything. I wanted to spend the month living instead of planning for what was next. Using December like that changed me. Here’s the one thing that stood out.

Most people treat the month of December like movie credits.

When December 1st starts playing, everyone begins brushing the kernels of 2025 off their laps, rushing towards the year’s exit. The constant conversation is all about what’s next. No one wants to fall behind, so everyone spends their time planning.

Reflecting.

Resolving.

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No one stays until the end.

The more I think about it, the more it feels absurd. It feels like a movie critic, in a rush to meet a deadline, writing a think piece about a film WHILE IT’S STILL PLAYING. 2025 was still playing, and instead of living and enjoying the moments, we were pressed to turn in our Resolutions before a ball dropped in New York.

I don’t like that game.

I don’t like those rules.

I want to stay until the end.

I don’t want to mindlessly follow everyone else to an exit so premature. We’re still in winter. The grass in my backyard is still dead (granted, it’ll be dead come springtime because I don’t take care of it like I should, but it’s dead now because it’s winter). The leaves are still hiding. Animals are hibernating. Creation is recharging. Resting. Reflecting. And this January, I want to do the same.

Maybe part of the reason why so many resolutions fail by February is that they were early. Maybe the resolutions weren’t wrong; they were just underdeveloped. Maybe, they needed an extra month or two in the oven. Maybe they needed an incubator, a place where the previous year (IN ITS ENTIRETY) could be taken into account, and the New Year could be experienced (even if only briefly).

Most people live their years, 11 months at a time! I don’t want to do that.

January, at least for me, is that incubator.

So while everyone else is scrambling to get ahead of the crowd, in a rush to go nowhere in particular. I think I’m going to stay reclined in my seat this month.

I still get up at 4:30am, as I have for the past 6 years (and counting).

After drinking water to rehydrate and having a cup of coffee, I still spend the first hour reading books I’ve been meaning to get to and writing words (like the ones you’re reading). But more importantly, I’m reflecting. On a full year. On all my plans that failed and apparent failures that didn’t go as planned, that turned out to be incredible successes looking through the lenses of December 31st.

For the third time in my life, I treated a year like I treat the movies. I stayed until the end, and I think I’ll be better for it.

I got LASIK in 2020, so I no longer wear glasses, so that little piece of my credibility may be gone, but I’m inviting you to join me. If you’ve already stood up with the rest of the crowd and resolved prematurely, don’t be afraid to erase some of those resolutions (or hit the backspace or throw it in the trash).

Stay until the end…

February is as good a time to start as any.

What are some of the most helpful reflection questions you’ve been asked?

Special Thank You to all my Cousins who have held me down as paid subscribers this past year.

To: Briana, Bonnie, Gale-Ann, Corinne, Leslie, Sandy, La’Twan, Cecelia, Epiphanies in Zimbabwe, Valerie, Elle, Ken, Rebekah, Bethany, Lisa, Bonnie, Kimberly, Alia, Kaleigh, Kathy, Rosemary, Diane, Jackie, Tiffany, Mackenzie, Natalie, Carol, Catherine, Alexa, Nicole, How We Be (Sorry your real name doesn’t appear), Bethany, and Rob - I want y’all to know that I’m truly grateful for you. If you’re here you know that my mission to bring beauty into the world by building the best teams on the planet, and you’ve been a huge part of that team in a year full of milestones. I can’t express how much your support has been key by helping me to fund the work that other creatives do. In some ways, your support here is pass through income for some of the most talented people on the planet who don’t have a platform for exposure (yet). Thanks for the ways you contribute to help people learn how to speak with an accent of hope! You can expect more specific engagement this upcoming year (that’s one of my resolutions that I’ve had in tank for the last 12 months, so it’s neither early nor half baked).

Art.

Drawing.

Portraits.

It’s not quite a new love. It’s really more of an old flame I’ve reconnected with.

An Old Flame

I fell in love again this summer. Almost every night I retreated back into my Studio and uncovered a love buried deep inside of me.

Art!

Growing up stuttering, you never imagine you’d be able to make a living using words—especially spoken ones. So you learn to use pictures to paint thousands of them. I grew up drawing more than writing or speaking, because pictures helped me communicate publicly in ways words couldn’t. My writing was never the best, and my speech was hard for people to stomach, by my pictures…my pictures caught people’s attention. So as a kid, I followed the compliments and leaned in. (It’s crazy how carving out a career as a preacher, author, and speaker, almost no one—even my best friends—know this side of me.)

I forgot about this side of me.

Remembering Me

I stopped drawing at 14 years old when my late brother, Sam, and I started bonding over basketball. Throughout life, I tend to spark these obsessions and can’t focus on anything else. Sam was an instigator of the best sorts. Turning my little sparks into forest fires. At 14, I traded in my pencil for a Wilson Evolution and never really looked back.

I forgot how much I loved it.

Buying a new pack of pencils two months ago cured my amnesia.

Over the last quarter of a century (26+ years) I can count the amount of times I’ve drawn anything. My most recent, before these pictures, was a piece of a cartoon in an iPad app in 2016.

I grew up drawing cartoons mainly. I’ve NEVER drawn faces. 2 months ago I decided to try my hand at it.

A few pencils, YouTube tutorials, books and articles about the Loomis Method, and lots of childhood curiosity later and here are some of the ones I like looking at the most.

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To date, I’ve drawn 19 faces in my entire life.

These are some of my favorites.

Love in the Lost & Found

Drawing has reminded me that loves lost can be recaptured. Dig through your pasts lost & found and you’ll find something special. I started taking pictures with my Fujifilm x100v a few years ago. I remember meeting my homie Sebastian in Israel a few years back, and hearing how his love for photography grew when his mom died. He didn’t have many pictures of her and never wanted to make the same mistake with future relationships.

I don’t have many pictures with Sam. I take photographs, like Sebastian, to protect myself from the same future regrets he fears. What I love about pictures is that in some way they allow me the opportunity to rewrite the past.

Maybe I’ll get nice enough with the Portraits to rewrite the narrative about Sam and I not having many pictures together. Maybe my rememory1 will be strengthened not by words of my writing, but pictures of my making.

I fell in love with art this summer. I’m glad you get to see my heart on the page instead of just imagining it.

Maybe one day, I’ll be known for my pictures again as much as my words.

What childhood loves do you need to recapture?

The Weight of Sugar Cane

Some stories sit in your chest for years before you even realize they’ve been trying to get out. This one’s been with me for a while.

It came to me in fragments: a cluttered New York City apartment filled with old photos and playing old music. A kid making mangu while her older sister argues with the insurance company on speakerphone because mami needed a translator, otherwise, who knows what she would’ve agreed to. A hallway of peeling paint and the sounds of chamaquitos playing manhunt in the distance…or maybe that’s just memory messing with me again.

What do adult children do when they return home—not just to care for a sick parent, but to face the emotional weight of everything left unsaid?

That’s the question underneath The Weight of Sugar Cane.

It’s about four adult Dominican siblings navigating one long weekend in their childhood apartment. A father’s health is challenged. Decisions have to be made. And in the middle of all that, something unexpected happens — they start remembering who they used to be around each other. They start playing again.

If you’ve ever cared for someone who didn’t know how to say “I love you,” or fought with a sibling while secretly needing their hug, this film is for you.

It’s a story about grief, yes. But also about joy and freedom and curiosity. About the type of joy that sneaks in the side door, uninvited, while you’re doing dishes or taking out the trash. The kind of joy you forgot you knew how to feel. The kind you find in the presence of people who’ve known you longer than you’ve known yourself.

The Weight of Sugar Cane is a short film about adult siblings who return home to care for their aging Dominican father. That’s the plot. But it’s also about something deeper — the quiet ache of growing up, the grief that settles into the corners of a NYC apartment, and the soft rediscovery of joy in places you thought had gone dry.

Our fundraising campaign on Seed&Spark is live and we’re slowly approaching the campaign end. When launched the campaign, the response was encouraging. The texts. The shares. The early supporters who gave without me even asking. It’s been a reminder that the stories we carry aren’t just ours. They’re communal. They’re cultural. They’re connective.

Now here’s the part where I get a little logistical; and a little bold.

Our goal is to raise $19,550 in 30 days. We’re about 12 days away from the campaign’s end and about $10k from reaching 80% of our goal, which is what we need to get greenlit. 

We’re making this film with the same independent, guerrilla-style spirit that shaped It Stays With Us, my last short. That little film went places: Oscar-qualifying festivals, private screenings, and, you know, We Go On, a 20-city tour on grief and hope. It even won a few awards along the way. But this one— this one, feels special.

A few things make The Weight of Sugar Cane unique:

1. The storytelling is grounded in atmosphere and gesture. We’re leaning less on exposition and more on physicality, sound, and silence. The way siblings talk without talking. The way a hallway can feel like childhood and adulthood all at once.

2. It’s a deeply Dominican-American story. From the food to the cadence to the way love and duty show up in a family like this, the film is an ode to Caribbean siblings navigating adulthood while still carrying the sound of their parents’ accent in their ears.

3. The production is led by an all-Caribbean team. That’s not a tagline; it’s our conviction. Dominican, and Puerto Rican. From cast to crew, we’re building something that reflects our community and pours back into it.

4. The cultural ROI is real. For our investors and funders, this isn’t just about backing a short film. It’s about creating space in the industry for culturally specific, emotionally expansive stories told by the people who lived them. Every dollar helps build not just a film, but a track record for future Dominican-led narratives.

So here’s my invitation:

If you’ve been moved by the work I’ve made in the past…

If you believe in stories that hold joy and grief at the same time…

If you want to see more films made by and for Caribbean communities…

Would you consider giving to the campaign? Or forwarding it to someone who might?Or simply sharing it, reposting it, becoming part of our “street team” in this first crucial week?

Here’s the link:

https://seedandspark.com/fund/the-weight-of-sugarcane

Every bit helps. Every cheer counts.

And if you want a visual? Picture four grown siblings cleaning their father’s apartment. The youngest puts on an old Johnny Ventura CD. The oldest groans. The middle one starts dancing without realizing it. And by the end, they’re all laughing. And for a moment everything feels like childhood again.

That’s the story we’re telling.

And I’d love for you to help us tell it.

Peace,

Rich Pérez

SUPPORT: The Weight of Sugar Cane

2023 was my busiest travel year in recent memory. There was a span where I was on 5 different continents over 5 weeks. Out of all the cities I’ve been to, Istanbul was the craziest. In the span of a week, I was on 3 different continents.

That’s not really all that impressive considering airport travel. There’s a lot of people who can say that. It’s almost like when kids say “I’ll see you next year” on December 31st. You hit em with the audible “ha ha” and keep it moving.

Back to Istanbul though. Istanbul was crazy. I remember looking for a good coffee shop and on the same day my Uber volleyed me from Asia to Europe two different times in a matter of 60 minutes. Here’s the thing about Istanbul…it’s a trans-continental city!!

TRANSCONTINENTAL City! Not country. CITY!

It’s a city of 22 million people that literally spans two continents. Half the city is in Europe and the other half is in Asia. You can take a bridge or a subway across. It was wild being there because we’re not used to traversing continents that quickly.

Continents are BIG & INTIMIDATING.

Until….

We realize that they connect.

Istanbul is a connector of worlds. It’s either one of the most liberal Eastern cities, or one of the most conservative Western cities you’ll find. However you define it, one thing is clear. It straddles every conventional line people think when they think of being tied to a continent. It’s a city where the residents aren’t typical Asian or Europeans. They’re some beautiful mixture of both.

They were FREE. They moved so FREE.

Transitioning from one side to the next was simple.

• No passport.

• No customs.

• No stops.

• No signs that said (now leaving Asia…or now entering Europe).

• Travel between the two continents was free, normal, expected.

Spending a week in this city changed me as two things really stood out.

1. I didn’t know when we crossed over from one side to the next. Both sides felt like a blend of two worlds.

2. I wasn’t forced to stay on either side. One day when I was looking for good coffee, my Uber volleyed me back and forth across continental lines.

It was such a strange experience. It turns out there are only 5 cities in the world that are like this. My hope is to create 13 more! With two different continents that are just as big and intimidating.

Grief & Hope are CONTINENTS

Grief and Hope are continents in the truest sense of the word. They seem BIG and INTIMIDATING. Grief (as a Continent) guards its borders very tightly. Grief doesn’t have very welcoming immigration or travel policies. It feels a little like if North Korea were a continent. As a citizen, you feel like you’ll never get out and Hope isn’t allowed to import anything in.

These continents feel so far apart. Freedom of travel is restricted. Once you arrive on Grief’s shore, it feels like Gilligan’s Island…you don’t ever imagine you’ll make your way off. So you start to settle in and build permanent homes in hopes of just making the best of a situation that won’t ever change. You enter into a deal with yourself. Just settle into despair, agree to never get your hopes up, and you’ll never feel this low again.

In the words of James Baldwin, that’s “A Bargain I Refuse!!”

Since 2022, when we started the We Go On Tour, we’ve created over 30 transcontinental cities, bridging GRIEF & HOPE together. I’ve wanted to spend one evening creating a vision of what it could feel like to ignore Grief’s strict immigration and travel policy and demonstrate what it’s like to move between these two continents.

• With no passport.

• No customs.

• No stops.

• No signs that say (Now leaving Grief…or Now Entering Hope).

• Where travel between the two sides easy, unhindered, and common.

I want see the look in your eyes when you realize “oh wait a minute…I’m on a different continent?”

I want to see your brows unfurrow and anxiety release it’s grip on your raised shoulders when you walk out of the doors having learned that you can freely travel back and forth from one side of the next.

With that being said, I want to invite you to the finale of The We Go On Tour 2024-2025.

We Go On 2024-2025

We Go On is an evening designed to help you hold on to hope during times that seem to make it so slippery. Come share an evening of hope and healing with others who get it.  

The We Go On Tour is designed as a next step toward healing. We’ve learned that sometimes the smallest steps are the most important ones - so, we curated a safe space for you to talk (and laugh) about the uncomfortable, intimidating, and sometimes scary topic: Grief. Our time together will be filled with coffee, live music, film, and conversation. Come experience a sense of both anticipation and freedom and leave with a wealth of hope. 

We’ve only got a few cities left.

NASHVILLE - Friday, April 25th

RALEIGH - Saturday, April 26th

CHICAGO - Sunday, April 27th

ATLANTA - Friday, May 2nd

If your city’s on the list of remaining cities, I hope to see you there. From now until the end of the tour, we’ve got a special discount for all of my Four in the Morning family. Use the discount code: CITYTOCITY for 50% off tickets. Hope to see you there.

We Go On Tour 2024-2025

Peace!

Just Listen:

Today is powerful.

A string of moments is always right before us, yet so easy to look past. Today, I’m reminded just how easy it is to take today for granted. I’m living in how easy it is to stress over tomorrows that may never come or daydream about futures I hope would arrive. The stresses and daydreams both fill my heart with anxiety. The stresses seem all too likely to come while the daydreams seem like they never will.

And yet, there’s today.

It’s here.

Right in front of me. Not ideal, but it’s still good. What a terrible lie I’ve believed that today has to be perfect to be enjoyed. That perfection is the only soil fertile enough to sprout joy. Survey says…that’s a lie. So much of life has been filled with joy, and so little of it perfect. So, I’ll stop flipping over today’s seat cushions, searching for perfection and the ideal. I’ll stop looking for the fulfillment of my daydreams and make every moment the most fulfilling one I can imagine. I’ll use every resource at my disposal to ensure I don’t leave any joy behind on my plate. I won’t let joy drop in these seat cushions.

I so desperately want to fill up on love…and life in every interaction and conversation.

In this way, my life becomes this scavenger hunt where I’m determined to track down and gather up all these rogue pieces of joy shattered into a thousand pieces spread across today!

Today is powerful.

Not perfect.

So few of my smiles have ever come from experiencing perfection, so I won’t hold the corners of my mouth hostage waiting around for it.

Peace

This is the first entry of my Grounds for __________ series. I wanted to have a place to process some of the ideas that have been locked away in all of the Field Notes Journals I’ve been keeping for the past few years. Just a quick word on a Saturday morning to create a space for small, but potent ideas to take root in our souls. Would love to hear about some of your everyday smiles!

Listen to me instead:

I’ve always been good at hiding my sadness. My physical stature makes me a hide-and-go-seek liability. At 6’3’ 235lbs, there aren’t many places in the house my daughter can’t find me. Emotionally though?! My big gap-toothed smile, eloquence, and optimism can misdirect even my closest friends best attempts to find my sadness. This year, however, my body hasn’t been listening to me. My poker face doesn’t work like it used to. I’ve said for years that grief is a language, but this year I haven’t been able to shake just how much it’s a body language. The closer I get to the 10-year anniversary of Sam’s passing, the more my bothered body won’t let me hide my sadness like it used to.

My Bothered Body

It’s not the memories that bother me the most; it’s the reflexes. The new ones. The ones I didn’t learn. These ones aren’t remnants of bad habits that stuck around, they were imposed on me. They leaned their shoulder in and burst through my front door, and regardless of how much I protest, they stick around. I haven’t been to a Longhorn Steakhouse since the day I walked out the door and screamed into my iPhone “He’s Dead?!” Not that I was frequent customer before Sam died, but I do remember seeing the signs often and not minding. The Longhorn Steakhouse logo didn’t cause any action or reaction. No reflex. They were benign. Since April 14, 2015 though, I find myself doing everything I can to avoid making eye contact with the Longhorn Steakhouse logo. Highway signs on roadtrips are the worst. You don’t realize just how many Longhorn Steakhouses there are until feel your stomach turn with each glance at one. You secretly hope that one day they’d just go out of business, so you can make the long roadtrips in peace.

My hurt body

It’s not the memories that hurt the most; it’s the reflexes. The new ones. Memories can be controlled. They can be reined in and counterbalanced. When a flood of bad ones come rushing in, it doesn’t take much to build a dam of good ones that stop them from drowning my peace. When they take over and I don’t have the strength, I can get someone on the phone to audibly give me spoken word and I can see new memories with my ears. But the reflexes don’t have any such remedy. I can’t sit down at a restaurant and get a call from my mom without my heart losing its rhythm. One look at the word “Mom” flashing across an iPhone when I’m in a restaurant, and my heart forgets it’s beating inside the chest of a Black man. She starts dancing like white folks doing the cha cha slide at a white wedding—my steady predictable rhythm is off and never quite catches its beat. A decade of prayers to God, talks with therapists, getting doctorates in grief, storytelling from coast to coast, and writing books doesn’t change that. That new reflex has signed a long-term lease in my bones, and I don’t know if it’ll ever leave. Oh how I wish my body would just go back to the way it was.

My discomforted body

It’s not the memories that cause the most discomfort; it’s the reflexes. The new ones. I no longer need a clock or a calendar remind me it’s Sam’s 9^th birthday since he passed as we near the 10^th anniversary of his death. It’s not the crying that’s most shocking. Honestly, at this point, over a decade in, the tears still come, but they don’t intrude. When they knock at the door of my tear ducts, I know it’s them without looking out the peephole. No one else passes through those doors at those hours. The tears about Sam are predictable. They know where the house key is and freely come and go. That’s not the reflex I hate the most. It’s the fatigue. I hate the fatigue. The short-temper. The mental exhaustion and lack of focus. I don’t want to go to the gym, so I don’t. I don’t want to eat right, so I don’t. I don’t want to do meaningful work, so I don’t. I don’t want to be patient with my wife and daughter, but I try my hardest. I fail harder. But I apologize even harder and at this point everyone understands. They brace for it. We’re all aware. We don’t use many words during this time of the year, but everyone reinforces their armor. They know it’s more of a battle than it should be. It’s the most physical part of the year—in a good way.

My friends know that I don’t need words during these four weeks. I need hugs. Lots of them. I don’t need stories of Sam. Every other time of the year the stories are welcome; however, during this time of the year, I can’t really process them or much of anything. I just need other bodies to hold me. The warmth is a gentle reminder I’m still alive. Their beating hearts next to mine help me regain my rhythm.

My disturbed body

It’s not the memories that disturb me the most; it’s the reflexes. The new ones. The I don’t give a f*cks that can I can’t keep in side. I used to have more restraint—I was able to put up with more of the bullsh*t…not the extreme stuff, just the regular everyday bullsh*t that fertilizes the soil of ordinary events. It’s the stuff that everyone steps in and only the Larry Davids of the world (the unashamed *ssholes) make a big fuss about. I no longer have the restraint I once did. No longer can I hold my eye rolls in. I talk to myself more, constantly giving my body etiquette lessons of what polite people do and don’t do. But he no longer listens to me. He doesn’t speak the language of logic. He won’t be told to stay in place, he must held. He won’t be guilted into moving towards someone in love after an offense, a warm hand must guide him there. He won’t voluntarily tell why he can’t stop sobbing at the dentist office, he must be gently held and patted on the back until he burps honesty.

I wish my bothered body would go back to the way it was. I don’t imagine it will. My sleeves have been wet all week, because I don’t usually carry tissue with me unless I have a cold. Maybe these new reflexes are here to stay. And if they are, maybe my best next step is to keep Kleenex as an ongoing expense instead of a seasonal one.

I’ve been so sad lately.

Lately…I’ve been grateful that I’ve been so bad at hiding it.

Peace

I used to say my daughter was scared of the dark.

If you walk into her room right now, you’ll notice the Christmas lights set to a timer, draped over a stuffed unicorn head hung taxidermy style on her wall. At night, she asks for the antique desk lamp on the far side of the room to be turned on until she falls asleep. These lights provide a nice warm supplement to the night light plugged in right next to her bed. Any unsuspecting passerby could look through the crack under her door and think she’s having an EDM party.

You can understand why I thought my daughter was scared of the dark. However, just a few months ago, I learned that my diagnosis of her nyctophobia might have been a little premature. One night, she wakes up from a terrible dream and sprints down the dark hallway into our bedroom, clearly shaken. After she has her fill of snuggles next to her mother and me, we have to ask her to leave. The first 15 minutes are nice and sweet while she’s trying to fall asleep. Once she’s down, however, she spends the next 90 kicking us in the back and the throat. We politely tell her it’s time for her to go back to her room. Every night is the same. She stands up and says two things. One statement followed by a question.

1. Daddy, I’m scared of the dark.

2. Daddy, will you hold me hand and walk me back to my room?

Her statement is unsurprising….her question though? It always catches me off guard.

She never asks me to turn on a light. She always asks me for my hand. I don’t remember when it clicked for me, but a few months ago, it became very clear that my daughter wasn’t scared of the dark.

She was scared of being alone in the dark.

Most of us aren’t scared of the darkness of grief and loss. We’re scared of being alone in that darkness.

I’ve learned this truth from Bethel as much as from my own daughter.

We met several years ago in the early months after her late husband David’s passing. I lost my brother several years prior and was introduced to Bethel through our mutual friend Faven, who lost her mother in the years between each of our losses. Grief united us. Our unintentional fluency created a safe space in the briefest of interactions.

I remember the pressure I felt when Faven introduced us. I knew everyone involved was praying I could provide Bethel with some hope. Maybe point her to some light at the end of this dark tunnel. I didn’t have much light and hope back then. The only thing I had to connect her to were four warm hands—two friends who had been widowed before the birth of their first gray hairs. They had walked along that dark path of losing a spouse at a young age, and for Bethel, that made all the difference.

As time passed, I realized that safety was the most helpful thing for a grieving soul.

Fear of the dark isn’t solved by adding light, but by removing loneliness.

Bethel recently wrote and released a book (of which my post this week is the foreword). This book, Not a Cinderella Story, is like a warm hand to hold for anyone searching for hope in the cold darkness of grief and looking for someone to turn on the lights. Bethel knows what it’s like to be drowned in splashes of sorry for your loss. These well meaning statements are intended to bring comfort and people imagine that they bring us some light. Yet, for all the good intentions, many are unaware just how much these phrases repeatedly remind us of our otherness. Our loneliness. The fact that we have less than they do. We have less than we used to.

Our loved ones are more than our lost ones. Bethel gives us a new way forward. This book is an example of how our fluency in grief extends a hand to grievers. Instead of being content hearing sorry for your loss, Bethel shares a story of her love. Every ounce of this is warm, inviting, intimate, sacred, and holy.

With every page, I was reminded that tragedy doesn’t ruin anyone. Hopelessness does.

And as long as we have a warm hand to hold on to, we are reminded that there is more life to live. Our current story is yet an incomplete one, and if we don’t have the strength to hold on to hope, we can experience it vicariously through the warmth of another.

You may still be in the dark.

You may still be scared.

But you’re not crazy.

You are not alone.

You are human.

Thanks for holding our hands through this dark hallway Bethel.

Peace,

John O

Note to reader: Alright, I know I said that the last letter would be my last repost for January, but this is really the last one. Posted on the last day of the month. Out of everything I wrote last year, this one hasn’t just stuck with me, it feels stuck within me. I’m thankful for the relationships that grief has birthed. Grief has birthed—who would’ve thought those two words work so well together? Alright, I’m done with my intro. I’ll see y’all with something fresh next Wednesday at 4am.

I 

I grew

I grew grew

I grew…I grew up

I grew…up, up, up

Stutter-stuttering

I grew up with a stutter.

I hated it. It wasn’t a life-threatening condition. It was a soul-emptying one. Simultaneously embarrassing and terrifying. They say when you go blind or lose one sense, your others progressively heighten. I know speech isn’t a sense in the traditional sense of the word, but the same truth applies.

When you can’t speak, your eyes and ears improve. You instantly become a fantastic reader and listener.

I soon started hearing facial expressions. Furrowed brows were lips that mouthed silent words of confusion, frustration, pity (not the good kind either), condescension, anxiety, confusion, and frustration (I know I already used those last adjectives. My repetition wasn’t a typo; it was just a bit of an example. If reading them in print twice is frustrating, imagine how exhausting it is to read them on every brow aimed in your direction).

You begin mixing up the syntax in a way that doesn’t make any real sense; you just hope people won’t notice. Sometimes, when the adjective you want to use starts with a d, you put it after the noun because it’s easier for you to get it out. You rearrange your syntax so much that people begin wondering if English is your first language. The furrowed brows are subtitled again, and you can read between every one of these lines.

Not this again.
Not him again.
Hurry up and move on.
Why are you stuck on these words and these phrases?

Soul-Emptying.

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Move On

Everyone knows the feeling of speaking before you’ve thought things through. Wanting to pick up the words that so carelessly fell from your lips. And apologize to everyone for speaking without thinking. Very few people know the agony of wanting to take back not your words but your thoughts. Very few know what it’s like to want to take back these thoughts because you know you’ll never be able to express them. And the longer they sit unexpressed, they create an indigestion of sorts that makes you envious and bitter of the someones who will eventually come along and say your insightful remark or steal your joke (that would never be funny coming from your mouth because the timing of the punch line would always be off).

Very few people know what it’s like for the whole world to beg YOU to

MOVE ON and

TALK ABOUT SOMETHING ELSE!?

Very few know the internal ache that pulsates in your diaphragm when you so desperately want to MOVE ON and TALK ABOUT SOMETHING ELSE….but you can’t. You just can’t seem to finish the sentence and get the words out.

But then, you grow up.

And in some ways, you don’t outgrow the stutter, but you grow out of it. In College you learn that people can’t sing and stutter at the same time, so you start to do spoken word (because you know you can’t sing). The same principles apply. The controlled breathing. The predictable melodic cadence that will follow you for the rest of your life. The inadvertent adoption of East Coast pronunciations of certain consonants and vowels because they were really the only ones with quality video and audio footage back then.

It sounds almost like raps, but you grew up in the suburbs, and despite your athletic frame, no one will believe you had a hard life. Your eyes are too gentle, and you like to show your gap-toothed smile too much. So you call it spoken word and learn to control your breathing. You learn how effective dramatic pauses can be. (People often think you’re inserting a dramatic pause, but you’re not. You’ve learned to know what consonant combinations trip you up, so you hold your breath, catch it long enough to rehearse the sounds in your head, remind your heart to keep beating, and tell your soul it’s okay if you mess up and reveal to the world you still stutter. It all happens in a split second, but you’ve controlled it, and now you release it smoothly).

The brows furrow differently. You read between those lines, and those lips aren’t frowning. They’re smiling.

You learn to talk about a full range of topics. You can talk spirituality, sports, socio-economic development, real estate, entertainment, music, art, biography, hip-hop, etc. You make a living off it. Your speaking literally takes you all over the world.

Finally, you’ve learned how to MOVE ON. You’re pretty good when it comes to TALKING ABOUT SOMETHING ELSE. Finally, you can meet the Old World’s request to MOVE ON and TALK ABOUT SOMETHING ELSE. You’re ready.

But then, your brother dies. One of the people who never seemed to care that you stuttered or teased you about it because he knew how much it hurt you. The one person not frustrated or even slightly annoyed by it is gone.

You can’t help but to start talking about his death.

And grief.

And for the first time, you don't want to move on even though you’ve learned how to talk about other things.

Not So Fast

You blink twice, and nine years have passed. You’ve spent the past 2 years sharing your writing publicly in book form. You host two nationwide tours on it. You write a substack. You executive produced a mini-doc and an album. You finished a doctoral dissertation and degree on the topic. You start to get tired of talking about it, sensing the rest of the world would be happy for you to MOVE ON like they did when you stuttered.

But now that you can talk about other things, people are begging you to keep talking about the same stuff.

They don’t want you to MOVE ON.

They’re happy to hear the same words and phrases.

And you stumble into a soul-filling realization.

Maybe stuttering isn’t that bad.

Maybe truth stutters a bit.

No truth sinks in the first time we hear it. We need to hear the same message again.

And again.

And again.

Maybe it’s okay to be known as the “grief guy” for a little bit longer. The people who lose someone tomorrow will be happy you wrote something about it today.

Dear Younger John,

While you’re learning how to speak words of hope to the world, do me a favor.

Love Yourself.

Stutter and all.

It’s gonna come in handy one day.

Peace,

John

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I want to offer a special shout-out to Marcus & Tarita the newest paid subscribers. Appreicate y’all so much. Anyone who knows me knows that my mission statement is to bring beauty into the world by building the best teams on the planet. I randomly turned on the Paid Subscribers this time last year in hopes of being able to start supporting up-and-coming writers, creators, etc. And y’all have come through in ways I never imagined. Special thanks to the rest of the crew that continues to hold us down - Bonnie, Gale-Ann, Valerie, Corinne, Leslie, Marcus, Sandy, Lisa, Tiffany, John, Rebekah, Bethany, Cecelia, Briana, Lisa, Carol, Ken, Alia, Life Beyond Reality, Kimberly, Kaleigh, Kathy Rosemary, Elle, Diane, Jackie, Mackenzie, Natalie, Catherine, Danetta, Alexa, Nicole, and Donna. Thank y’all for being a part of the team I’m building. Can’t wait to see all the beautiful things we’ll make together.

Note to reader: January’s just about done, so I’m wrapping up my reflection and getting ready to start creating. This is my last repost from 2024. I’m currently finishing my 3rd book now. The title—Grief is a Language: Finding the Right Words When There are None (manuscript due to the publisher July 1 for a 2026 release). I can’t wait to share parts of it with you here (as well as get your help with it as I learn through hearing your stories). Enjoy this peace for today. In some ways this is where it all began for me. I’m still not okay, but I’m getting there.

Anger is the best hiding place for anybody seeking to conceal pain or anguish of spirit. – bell hooks

I'm okay!!

I'm okay!?

I'm okay.

At least, that's what I kept telling myself. All right. It’s January 2016. I’m eight months removed from starting my third church in 10 years. I'm nine months removed from burying brother.

But I'm okay.

January 2016, remember. I'm in my forest green 2003 Toyota Camry, turning right into the parking lot of Lenox Mall in Atlanta. I'm only there pit-stopping to take back a pair of Huraches to the Nike store (you know they run half a size small). I'm on the way back from leading chapel for the Texas A&M men's basketball team. I was friends with the coach then, and he asked me to come and talk to them about Grief, hope, and the stories that take us from one side to the other. Normally, I’d be upset at how long it takes to find a parking spot, but today was different. I didn’t mind waiting.

Why? Because I can’t keep the corners of my mouth straight. They keep floating up to my ears. Normally, I’m not this self-absorbed, but today…it’s different. I KILLED it with the team. They were laughing. Crying. They hugged me when I left and kept applauding out the door. Even I was impressed at how quickly I hurdled my Grief and began to help other people deal with their own.

I’m okay!

Or so I thought. A little parking lot skirmish would show me otherwise.

No sooner than the spot I was clearly next in line for becomes vacant, a group of kids swoop in and snatch it. Immediately, I go white-knuckled behind this beige steering wheel (which lets you a little bit into my state of mind. Do you know how hard it is for a Nigerian brother my complexion to go white-knuckled?) To say I was angry was an understatement.

I’m woo-saa’ing for a second and gently tap my horn while mouthing to the kids that the spot was mine.

I wish you could have seen the genuine remorse in their eyes. Incredibly apologetic, they mouthed back,

"Don't trip; we just planned on pulling into the spot so we could back out and go the other way."

So I relax. The melanin feels welcome to return to my knuckles.

And I wait.

And I wait.

And I wait.

And the car doesn't move.  

As I start to inch up and look out of my right window, I see this group of kids (this is the best word that I can use to describe how they slithered out the car) scurrying out the backseat of the vehicle. Laughing.

AT ME?!

Mind you, I’m still a pastor at the time.

I don’t know what happened to my composure. I mean, I just had it a minute ago, but now I can’t find it. The melanin rushes out of my knuckles quicker than when Black folks notice a group of people running away from, well,…anything.

So I rolled down my right window.

And I look and I just aim my eyeballs right at these kids.

And…..

And I cuss ‘em out. I mean cuss cuss. The cussing wasn't even the most surprising thing. The most surprising thing was the fluency that I retained. Feel me? I took four years of Spanish in high school and I lost it quick. I have trouble finding a baño whenever I’m in Central or South America (or certain parts of Texas). And even though I hadn't cussed anybody out in 15 years, I was stringing together those phrases like a macaroni necklace. It was effortless.

What makes this whole scene worse is now that I'm done with my tantrum, a space opens next to the one I lost.

When I came to my senses, I realized I hadn't moved past my grief at all. My emotional room wasn't cleaned. I just really good at packing my grief (and everything it touched) in the closet. My Grief wasn’t under control; it was merely under the surface.

Instantly, shame nestles my shoulders with all the comfort you'd expect from a wet blanket in a Minneapolis winter.

This isn't me. Something is off. Something big.

I’m NOT OKAY

I pause for a bit and call my wife and two of my best friends. And I unload. I tell them what went down, and I whisper the words,

“you know. I’m NOT okay!”

I expected them to scold me. But instead, they were so gentle with me. Their kind words reached up and massaged all the tension out my tight shoulders. And they all so gently replied,

“WE KNOW you’re not okay. We’ve just been waiting for YOU to realize it.”

And those words made me realize the only person rushing to finish. Nobody, absolutely no one else expected me to finish my journey that quick. That was the first thing that helped me to slow down.

So then, a month later, my church granted me a sabbatical. Without having to preach or counsel anyone, I could no longer numb my broken heart with the anesthesia that comes from helping people put theirs back together.

I had spent the past year asking myself these questions every day.

• Would today be the day that I want to do something other than sit in the dark?

• Would today be the day when somebody asked me how I was, and I’d be able to say fine without fear of nose going Pinnochio right in front of their eyes?

• Would today be the first day that I didn't try to find a way to sneak Sam into a conversation to remind people that I'm still sad? Or to make sure that I didn't forget him?

And I realized nothing was wrong with my questions, but everything was wrong with what the answers did to me. They drove me to despair and despondency, feeling like I was a failure because I hadn't reached a finish line. And let me tell you, as I approach the ninth anniversary of my brother’s passing, I still haven't found a finish line (much less reached one) to this thing called Grief. Because…. there isn’t one.

Share Four In the Morning

One of the most important lessons that I learned throughout all of this is

Grief doesn’t have an expiration date.

Grief doesn't have an expiration date

Grief is a non-perishable food item. Grief is that can of beans that’s been sitting at the back of your Granny’s pantry since WWII. Songs, memories, or parking lot skirmishes tend to unexpectedly pop the top off the Grief, and it smells fresh. Your body responds to the loss like it happened this morning.  

Grief is much worse than you think. We live in a world that will tell you that time heals all wounds; we’ve determined that that in fact is a lie!

Do you know what comes after Grief? More Grief. Life becomes incredibly complicated. Especially when we’re running towards an imaginary finish line. But if we start to embrace the fact that maybe there isn’t a finish, we change how we engage with Grief.

Maybe Grief isn't an event that we hurdle past. Maybe our deepest losses are an invitation into a convo with Grief that we’ll have for the rest of our lives. And here's the opening words of that conversation. Are you ready?

What Grief tells us, what Grief constantly reminds us of, is this one truth.

Everything in this world that you love, you WILL lose.

It’s like gravity. It won’t be argued with.

That's not meant to make you sad. It's meant to make you sober.

It's meant to make you a better more present version of yourself.

It's meant to remind you that the most valuable moments in life are as fragile as they are precious. Whenever I’m ignoring my daughter because my nose is buried in your phone, Grief slithers up my spine, taps me on the shoulder, and whispers into my ears,

Everything you love, you WILL lose. So instead of burying your nose in your phone, nestle it in your daughter. She won’t be this age, or in this house, or in this world, forever. And if you don’t get that blood pressure under control, you won’t be either.

Maybe it's helpful for us not to think of Grief as a journey with stages. Journeys start and have a definite end. Grief doesn’t end.

Maybe it's more helpful to think of Grief as a language.

Grief is a Language

The goal of language isn’t finishing. It’s fluency.

If humanity were a country, Grief would be the official language. Even though Grief is the official language, it's nobody's native tongue. We all have to learn it. Don’t believe me? Compare the sparse attendance at your next family reunion with the near-perfect attendance every time you have to bury someone. It's humanity’s official language. Grief unites us.

However, no one is a native Grief Speaker. Take Nigeria for example. It’s a country of 200 million people comprised of hundreds of native dialects and tribes. Do you know what the official language of Nigeria is? English. A learned language that unites people. If you're going to be connected across that landscape, that's the language that you have to learn. Grief is the same; we must learn how to speak it.

And I want y'all to know this. The best way to learn a language is by immersion. It's not by sitting in rows. It's not by Duolingo. It's by immersing yourself in film and conversation and stories and substacks and music and being in it to the point where you learn how to speak it.

Fluency Comes From Mastering Dialects

Every language has multiple dialects. When it comes to Grief, there’s at least two.

Tangible Grief & Ambiguous Grief.

People know how to speak tangible Grief well. When someone you love dies, their body is dropped into the ground. Once the tears begin sprinting down your cheek chasing the buried body, people can connect the dots. You’re surrounded with hugs, handshakes, bouquets of “sorry for loss,” and casseroles (if that’s your sort of thing). You have multiple hands to help you uphold that Grief.

The other dialect most people are unfamiliar with is ambiguous Grief. This is different. Ambiguous loss is the death of a dream. The death of a relationship. The death of a friendship. The diagnosis of a parent with dementia, where even though they're alive, you talk about them in the past tense.

These are all deaths with no funerals. Funerals with no caskets. And when your body physiologically grieves IN THE SAME WAY, and those same tears of loss start sprinting down your cheeks….people are puzzled. They have no fallen body to connect the tears to. So instead of words of comfort, you're pelted with questions at best (why are you sad?) or critiques at worst (boy, stop all that crying, it ain’t like nobody died). This Grief is a weight that you have to carry by yourself.

Worse, these ambiguous griefs usually come as a delayed package deal with the tangible ones. They often don’t appear until after time, and forgetfulness erodes the rock of support that was your initial grief community.

cuídate

Navigating Holiday Grief

Welcome to Cuídate, A space dedicated to the art of mindfulness where stories create room for joy, gentleness, healing, and a renewed sense of purpose. Please note that the support from paid subscribers makes all the writing and teaching on this Substack possible. If my work pulls your heart strings and you want access to more honest essays and a communi…

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2 years ago · 28 likes · 6 comments · Josefina H. Sanders

Very few are fluent. So ambiguous loss is a weight we’re forced to carry all by ourselves. (And sometimes we don’t even have ourselves to help carry the weight because we’ve decided what to do with our sadness before discovering why it’s there). Over the past few years, I’ve found several people who are as fluent in Grief as I’ve ever experienced. And I’ve found them all here. Nova, Robert, & Josefina are three that immediately come to mind.

Nova Reid's Substack

The unspoken grief of when friendships end

“Most relationships end. Friendships, romances, they break” These words, which open the trailer of Ava DuVernay’s latest film; Origin, floored me. The searing honesty. The heartbreak of this reality. The pain of it. The grief. The grief of when a friendship ends, is one of the most painful and enduring experiences I’ve had and is something that is not spo…

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2 years ago · 205 likes · 57 comments · Nova Reid

Fluency Begins with Mastering Phrases

The goal of today (whatever day you read this) is for us to start the journey in fluency. Fluency always begins with mastering one phrase.

Como Estas?

Kedu?

Bonjour!

If you follow anything I do, there’s one phrase that you’ll constantly hear, wear, read, or see from me. It’s the best place to begin once you realize there’s no end.

Tragedy doesn’t ruin anyone. Hopelessness does.

I hope that as time passes and Grief hides away, only to resurface clothed in an “anger costume״ during your next parking lot skirmish, you’re surprised by a more refreshing fluency than I was.

I hope these words help you hold on to hope today.

Peace,

John O

P.S. What phrases have been most helpful to you in your journey towards Grief Fluency?

Note to Reader: In keeping with my January tradition of reflecting, here’s another of my favorite pieces from last year. This one is all about rememory (a term coined by Toni Morrison.) Rememory is when we take control of a past narrative to reclaim present and ongoing trauma. This act of narrative love is a way I’ve learned to help people hold their grief, not by giving answers for it, but by reminding them that the past story is not a complete one. Each scene is part of an ongoing story still being written; and as that new story is retold, we then have the ability to revisit the past and use our rememory to help reshape it. Welcome to an exercise in rememory.

There are years that ask questions and years that answer.”
– Zora Neale Hurston

Years that Ask Questions

All I remember about April 14, 2015, are the unimportant things. I remember it was a Tuesday. I could close my eyes today and retrace the layout of the Longhorn Steakhouse in Orlando. I’ll never forget the way my knees literally knocked together before giving out. I’ll always remember the way the faces on the unsuspecting diners so effortlessly twisted between terror, disgust, and sympathy as they looked (and tried not to look) at me screaming the words

HE’S DEAD??

HE’S DEAD!?

HE’S DEAD!!

at my iPhone.

Before I had a chance to protest or offer a prayer for God to heal or fix or repair or change or whatever we expect Him to do in those times, my brother was gone. And I was left holding nothing but the anxiety that comes with knowing I would have to put my mom, dad, brothers, and sisters (and all the unsuspecting bystanders in their orbit) through what I just went through as I relayed the news that my brother was dead. I knew this day would be the worst day of my life, and that it would likely never be redeemed.

Just like that, my brother Sam was gone.

My apprenticeship with sorrow had begun.

The Wonder Years

Like all apprentices on their first day, when the grief first hit, I had no idea what I was doing. But unlike real apprentices, I had no one beside me—no mentor to guide, teach, or instruct me. As a result, I was about to do a whole lot of damage, both to myself and everyone orbiting around me pulled down by the gravity of my grief.

My brother died four days after my wife and I had received news of a failed adoption. I buried my brother quickly before getting right back to work, starting a church six weeks later in a part of town where tragedy was a long-term tenant, routinely visiting each of our neighbors without warning. We were a young church unacquainted with processing grief; and as providence would have it, the death of my brother was the first domino in a seemingly never-ending series that began to fall. And I, as a thirty-year-old pastor who just suffered my first loss was responsible for helping to pick up these fallen dominoes.

I remember fragments of these days: dreading stepping into the pulpit, crying through more sermons than I can count, putting my wife through the wringer, and ultimately feeling like a fraud because of how hard it was to believe the good things I was preaching about God—His wisdom, His kindness, His grace, His care, His compassion.

My faith crumbled quicker than molded bread and stayed in pieces for longer than I’d ever care to admit. One of the only shreds of consolation during that time was this CS Lewis quote I read in A Grief Observed as he was reflecting on the death of his wife.

God has not been trying an experiment on my faith or love in order to find out their quality. He knew it already. It was I who didn't. In this trial He makes us occupy the dock, the witness box, and the bench all at once. He always knew that my temple was a house of cards. His only way of making me realize the fact was to knock it down.

The ounce of hope I found in that quote reminded me that my shattered faith was not my fault—nor was it irreparable. But I wasn’t equipped to piece it back together. If this issue was going to be solved, the solution would have to come from Him. All I could do was wait.

As the days passed, I did the best I could during the day only to realize that when I got home, my best wasn’t good enough. I was new at grief. In the show The Morning Show, character Hannah Shoenfield (played by Gugu Mbatha-Raw) sits in a car with a production assistant, processing her proficiency at speaking to hurting people during a series of California fires that have left people with nothing. The PA asks how Hannah came to be so good at it, and Hannah simply replies, “I’m smart at tragedy. There’s nothing you can say to make it better, but there’s a lot of stuff you can say to make it worse. I try not to make it worse.” I wish I’d had even this much advice back then.

I didn’t. Those years in between were fumbled in so many ways.

Two years later, things cleared up a bit.

Years that Answer

“Part of grief’s tyranny is that it robs you from remembering the things that matter” - Chimamanda Adichie

It was April 14^th, 2017. It was a Friday. I was still pastoring the Atlanta church we started a few years prior, but on this Friday, I was in the NICU in Columbus, Georgia. After a decade of praying for children, God answered, and my daughter was born about a week before this Good Friday. Because she was born premature, she still couldn’t breathe on her own (she had a breathing machine), she couldn’t eat on her own (tubes were everywhere), and she couldn’t regulate her body temperature, so she had to spend twenty-two hours a day in an incubator.

It's funny the things you remember. I’m a terrible singer and think of myself as tone-deaf, but I still remember the keys that all the beeps and monitors were in. I’ll never forget seeing my daughter’s first smile through the smudged glass of the incubator. I remember how uncomfortable it was to hold her with her breathing tube constantly getting in the way. I was always mindful of my embrace of her because I didn’t want to scrunch the tube up.

I didn’t mind—it was better than not holding her—but I do remember it feeling like an obstacle.

The one thing I’ll never forget, however, is what happened on that Friday.

That Good Friday.

I had to drive back to Atlanta to preach the Good Friday service, so my wife let me have all the skin-to-skin time that day. I remember holding my daughter and reading to her a chapter on adoption in one of my favorite books. Even while holding my daughter in my hands, all I could think about was death.

April 14th had been more than a sad day. It was a blackout day where Joy was grounded and unable to fly. Despite this amazing blessing, this year the sadness hit differently. It was also the two-year anniversary of my brother’s death, and I was holding my daughter in my arms, grieving the fact they’d never meet.

And then, the doctor came and out of nowhere snatched my daughter out of my hands.

Before I had a chance to protest or offer a prayer for God to heal or fix or repair or change or whatever we expect him to do in those times, she was gone. Out of arms. By the time I turned around, the doctor placed her back into my arms, and she was noticeably lighter. My confusion evaporated as he whispered these words in my ear:

“Today’s the day she breathes on her own.”

He had only removed her from my arms to take out her breathing machine. She no longer needed to live life hindered. She could breathe on her own. Before I knew it, me and her were reunited with no more tubes between us.

In an instant, my thoughts of April 14^th, God’s goodness, grief, and death changed forever.

Tears of sorrow and tears of joy both canalled into the corners of my mouth, and I realized they both tasted the same. In an instant, grief and hope, joy and sorrow intersected. I learned that grief and hope aren’t parallel streets that we travel down based on life’s circumstances.

They’re winding roads that intersect at some of the most unexpected points.

When the Almighty guides us down the paths of grief, He isn’t leading us away from hope. He’s trying to lead us to the point where those streets intersect so that we never believe the lie that our joy is tied to our circumstances.

Grief doesn’t need to be avoided. It’s calling for us to lean in. And even though our faith is shattered in pieces, we’re never alone. We’re carried along until we reach the point where it begins to make sense.

The only thing I was missing in the two-year gap was the patience to let God finish writing the story.

The Stories that Hold Us

Over the past seven years, I’ve shared this story hundreds of times to thousands of people. Each time, they have expressed their thanks as they have shared that hearing that story gives them the patience to allow God to continue to write their own.

One of the most important lessons for His children to learn is that tragedy doesn’t ruin any one of us.

Hopelessness does.

You only need to hold on to hope. These stories help us hold on.

Stories change us because stories are about change.

When speaking the language of Grief, stories serve as repeated reminders to the grievers that change is possible. The tide has turned before; it’ll happen again. The role of the poet or storyteller, as Northrop Frye puts it is, “is not to tell you what happened, but what happens: not what did take place, but the kind of thing that always does take place.”

Today, I tell this story to remind us, that while God had a lot of children, He has no favorite children.

If He’s written a good story for one of us, He’s inclined to do it again.

I’ve shared mine. I’d love to hear yours! Because in the thickness of grief’s fog, I forget that fog isn’t solid. I’m tempted to stand still and I need other stories to help me move forward.

Would love for you to share your stories of hope in the comments. Take as much space as you need. I’ll repost some of the most encouraging ones this weekend here so the rest of the family can use the threads of your storyline to hold on to hope.

Peace!

Note to the Reader: This is another repost from previous years. As you might already know I use January for reflecting, not resolving. So I’m spending more time reading old content that creating new stuff. It’s hard for me to look forward, look backwards, and attempt to write new content simultaneously. Beginning in February, you can expect something from me, every Wednesday at 4am-ish. Alright, with all that being said, I hope what you find below lifts your spirits. I don’t know you, but I love you! Peace.

Most people die on the climb down.

When it comes to both setting goals and climbing mountains, most of us misunderstand the assignment. We tend to define success by the described activity not the desired outcome. Don’t believe me? Just think about it. If someone says their goal is to climb Mount Everest, what would be the ultimate win?

Making it to the top! Right?

Wrong.

Making it to the top is success if (and only if) you focus on the described activity, not the most desirable outcome.

We think reaching the highest heights is the goal because we’re focusing on the action (climbing).

We think making it to the top is the goal because we live in a world that celebrates grit and perseverance and sticking with it at any cost.

We think making it to the top is the goal because books and movies are written about those who do. Their names are memorialized and immortalized. Those who don’t are forgotten.

What if I told you the goal of mountain climbing isn’t reaching the top, but arriving back at the bottom.

Alive.

Oh yeah, that part does seem pretty important now that I mention it.

I’m a Proud Quitter

Last week I read a book by Annie Duke called, Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away. Basically, when you’re climbing a mountain (if that’s the sort of thing you do), you’ve got to set a turnaround time. What’s that? It’s a point at which you’ll quit, regardless of how far you’ve come. Why?? So you don’t die on the way down.

Annie puts it like this, “A turnaround time is, simply put, the time at which climbers are to stop their ascent, even if they haven’t yet reached their destination, and return to camp. Turnaround times are meant to protect climbers from putting themselves in danger on the descent, which requires more skill than ascending the mountain.”

What Annie’s trying to say is this. If you’re climbing a mountain and you get close to the top and you only have a little ways left to go and that alarm buzzes to tell you to turn back, you’ve got a couple of choices.

1. You can squeak the little energy you have left to meet your goal. OR

2. You can use the remaining energy you have to make the climb back down.

Again, we live in a world that pressures us to “persevere”. You’re almost there. Don’t quit yet. Don’t give up. There’s more to be done. Just a little more perseverance and you’ll be remembered as a hero.

The only problem with living like this (as an unbreakable rule of life) is that you have a limited amount of energy. If you use it all on the climb up, you won’t have any left for the climb back down. Which is often harder than the climb up. You can’t just free-fall off the top of the mountain. In other words, Uber don’t come up this way fam! And ain’t nobody gonna come and carry you back down.

Most people die on the climb down.

Quitting on time won’t make you famous. It’ll likely make you infamous. Quitting on time; however, will likely save your family—namely by ensuring that your spouses and kids don’t prematurely become orphans and widows.

Most people die on the climb down BECAUSE THEY FORGET climbing down requires more energy. And your supply is finite.

My Climb Down

If you’ve kept up with anything I’ve done over the past few years, you already know where I’m going with this. Over the past 10 years, December 31st has meant a lot to me. Two momentous resignations took place eight years apart.

December 31st 2014. December 31st 2022.

On December 31st, 2014 I stopped trying to save my hairline and decided to go bald. On December 31st, 2022 I resigned from the pastorate after 16 years. It was the only full-time job I’d ever had. It was more than just my career, it was a part of me. More than just an appendage or a limb. It was my identity in so many ways.

In both instances, I was greeted with similar responses.

Are you sure you want to do that? I think you still had a little more in you.

To which I replied..Maybe.

Maybe I could have rocked a low Caesar to hide the fact my eyebrows and hairline were experiencing irreconcilable differences and had been growing apart for most of my twenties.

Maybe I could have pastored for a little while longer and ascended to greater heights that before.

But at what cost and for what benefit?

• Saving myself from the frustration of having speaking engagements cancel on me because my abrupt (to them) departure felt like it was too soon and I must be hiding something?

• Calming suspicion that I was running away from something or someone?

• Sacrificing my call of giving my primary attention to my wife and daughter in this season?

• All to maintain credibility with people who aren’t stakeholders in my life?

You know what? Maybe I had some more time and energy left.

Maybe.

That’s a real possibility. But it’s just that—a possibility.

One Certainty

The only thing I knew with ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY was the climb down takes energy. And I wanted to make sure when I went to withdraw the energy needed for the climb down, I didn’t overdraft. I wanted to make it back down the mountain.

Alive.

So today, this Wednesday January 10th at 4am (over a year from my decision), I’m still happy and content. I’m scaling down to the bottom of the mountain and it’s harder than I thought. My identity was tethered to pastoring and untying that knot is tough. It’s taken a year of detangling and it’s still knotty in so many more ways than I imagined. I still miss parts of it. I see things I wish I would have done and things I currently want to accomplish and change. And I was so close to being able to do it all. But those things aren’t the most important.

Do you know what it is?

My wife still loves me and our relationship has been better than ever. My daughter is praying on her own before bedtime and still LOVES going to church. Cornerstone is growing in attendance each week (without me). My friendships have shrunk in their number, but they’ve deepen in their impact on myself (and them…I hope).

And I’m at peace. Enjoying every bit of it.

I didn’t want to freefall off the top of the mountain.

The goal is to come down. Alive. And I’m repelling. And I’m still breathing.

Where in your life do you need to quit while you’re ahead to reserve some energy for the climb down?

Note to the reader: This is a repost of something I shared January of last year…and the year before. In this way, I think this will become something of a tradition as I’ve had a number of friends ask me for the link to reshare. There are twice as many of you on this list than were here this time last year, so even though this isn’t new, it’s likely new to you. Out of everything I shared last year…and the year before, this was one of the most important.

Stay until the end….

I remember watching a post-credits movie scene for the first time. I think it was Iron Man. You know the vibe. The credits start rolling as everyone is brushing pop-corn kernels off their laps to the soundtrack of synchronized grunts from people in their 40’s (and beyond) attempting to stand. The large majority of the theater was making their way to the exit, seemingly in a rush to go somewhere.

But where? We were at the movies, and it was the last showing.

We were out.

This is where people intended to be, and the only other place to go after the movies was home. Most of the people had nowhere to be, yet they were in a rush.

It didn’t make any sense, but the collective energy was enough to pull me out of my seat towards the exit with the rest of the herd. Following the crowd felt so natural. So easy. I would’ve done it if I hadn’t heard the faint whisper of the white dude in glasses next to me.

Stay until the end…

I listened. Maybe it was because he had glasses and it was a comic book movie (and he looked like the type that would give you the backstory of the characters without taking a breath, his only pauses coming as he knuckled his glasses back up the bridge of his nose.)

There was more.

There was more. The movie wasn’t over yet. And that one scene, after an apparent conclusion, forever changed how I engaged with movies. I always stay until the end. I never form my conclusions until I see everything. Everything.

It’s been a little over two years since I made the decision to resign as a pastor after 16 years. My entire adult life (and more of my identity than I’d like to admit) was wrapped up in that job.

That title.

That position.

That calling.

December felt more like a series finale than a season finale, which made me hyper-aware of everything. I didn’t want to miss anything. I wanted to spend the month living instead of planning for what was next. Using December like that changed me. Here’s the one thing that stood out.

Most people treat the month of December like movie credits.

When December 1st starts playing, everyone begins brushing the kernels of 2023 off their laps, rushing towards the year’s exit. The constant conversation is all about what’s next. No one wants to fall behind, so everyone spends their time planning.

Reflecting.

Resolving.

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No one stays until the end.

The more I think about it, the more it feels absurd. It feels like a movie critic, in a rush to meet a deadline, writing a think piece about a film WHILE IT’S STILL PLAYING. 2024 was still playing, and instead of living and enjoying the moments, we were pressed to turn in our Resolutions before a ball dropped in New York.

I don’t like that game.

I don’t like those rules.

I want to stay until the end.

I don’t want to mindlessly follow everyone else to an exit so premature. We’re still in winter. The grass in my backyard is still dead (granted, it’ll be dead come springtime because I don’t take care of it like I should, but it’s dead now because it’s winter). The leaves are still hiding. Animals are hibernating. Creation is recharging. Resting. Reflecting. And this January, I want to do the same.

Maybe part of the reason why so many resolutions fail by February is that they were early. Maybe the resolutions weren’t wrong; they were just underdeveloped. Maybe, they needed an extra month or two in the oven. Maybe they needed an incubator, a place where the previous year (IN ITS ENTIRETY) could be taken into account, and the New Year could be experienced (even if only briefly).

Most people live their years, 11 months at a time! I don’t want to do that.

January, at least for me, is that incubator.

So while everyone else is scrambling to get ahead of the crowd, in a rush to go nowhere in particular. I think I’m going to stay reclined in my seat this month.

I still get up at 4:30am, as I have for the past 6 years (and counting).

After drinking water to rehydrate and having a cup of coffee, I still spend the first hour reading books I’ve been meaning to get to and writing words (like the ones you’re reading). But more importantly, I’m reflecting. On a full year. On all my plans that failed and apparent failures that didn’t go as planned, that turned out to be incredible successes looking through the lenses of December 31st.

For the third time in my life, I treated a year like I treat the movies. I stayed until the end, and I think I’ll be better for it.

I got LASIK in 2020, so I no longer wear glasses, so that little piece of my credibility may be gone, but I’m inviting you to join me. If you’ve already stood up with the rest of the crowd and resolved prematurely, don’t be afraid to erase some of those resolutions (or hit the backspace or throw it in the trash).

Stay until the end…

February is as good a time to start as any.

What are some of the most helpful reflection questions you’ve been asked?

Special Thank You to all my Cousins who have held me down as paid subscribers this past year.

To: Briana, Bonnie, Gale-Ann, Corinne, Leslie, Sandy, La’Twan, Cecelia, Epiphanies in Zimbabwe, Valerie, Elle, Ken, Rebekah, Bethany, Lisa, Bonnie, Kimberly, Alia, Kaleigh, Kathy, Rosemary, Diane, Jackie, Tiffany, Mackenzie, Natalie, Carol, Catherine, Alexa, Nicole, How We Be (Sorry your real name doesn’t appear), Bethany, and Rob - I want y’all to know that I’m truly grateful for you. If you’re here you know that my mission to bring beauty into the world by building the best teams on the planet, and you’ve been a huge part of that team in a year full of milestones. I can’t express how much your support has been key by helping me to fund the work that other creatives do. In some ways, your support here is pass through income for some of the most talented people on the planet who don’t have a platform for exposure (yet). Thanks for the ways you contribute to help people learn how to speak with an accent of hope! You can expect more specific engagement this upcoming year (that’s one of my resolutions that I’ve had in tank for the last 12 months, so it’s neither early nor half baked).

I don’t remember much of 2015.

In my memory, 2015 stands shrouded in a thick fog of forgetfulness. Among this haze, only one pathway remains untouched. A narrow path about six weeks wide.

April 14th-June 7th.

During this time, I lost my brother prematurely, lost my faith completely, planted my third church reluctantly, and began my apprenticeship with sorrow unknowingly.

I’ve written extensively about that journey here, but what I haven’t talked about much is what the grief does to me every year. My experience with years is flip-flopped. Most of the years since 2015 have been extremely clear and vivid, except for a 4-week path that stays clothed in foggy lethargy and forgetfulness.

March 17th-April 14th.

Those are the dates written on my brother’s tombstone. His birthday and the day he passed. Beginning in 2016 those became my blackout dates—although I didn’t realize it until 2018 when my wife (so graciously) pointed it out to me. Every year, during that 4 week stretch, I’m no good.

Understand, grief is always with me. It’s in the background of everything I do. An extra in every scene, every place I go, and everywhere I turn. But, during this yearly 4-week stretch, grief aggressively moves to the foreground and renders me incapable in so many ways.

I don’t can’t go to the gym as regularly.

I don’t can’t smile as consistently.

I don’t can’t control my temper as easily.

I don’t can’t focus on work as diligently.

So starting in 2019, those became my blackout dates.

The people closest to me don’t necessarily excuse my behavior, they just make special allowances because they know the reason behind my off-ness. During that stretch, I unapologetically go dark and only really come up for air during March Madness (for almost 20 years, Sam and I shared the opening weekend of March Madness as our special happy place.)

I started off this year posting something almost every week and planned to take off those 4 weeks beginning in March.

This year, as I turned 40, those 4 weeks turned into 4 months 6 months 7 months 8 months (I’ve been revising this draft since June 4, 2004) and as I’m on my front porch in my study, on this perfect brisk Atlanta Saturday afternoon Sunday morning, I feel like I’ve finally caught my breath enough to catch you up to what these 7 8 months have been.

For the past 9.5 years sadness sticks to me in a way it didn’t use to. Something changed this year though. I extended my blackout dates, not because I was sad, but because I so immersed in the joy of living in the present that I haven’t really set aside time to reflect on it because I just wanted to enjoy what life has become. For the first time in a long time (maybe ever), as grief has been in the foreground, she’s been flaunting her complexity. With open hands, she’s shown me that for every dollar of sorrow she’s given me over the decade, she’s put another dollar of joy in a savings account.

And in this 40th year of life…I’m finally getting around to cashing the postdated check so many people told me was coming. This past year has provided a lot of closed loops to life’s plot holes.

So let me catch you up on these past 8 months.

April 14th, 2015 (the day that Sam passed) - I took my first leave of absence from my first doctoral program. (In 2020, I ended up dropping out completely after finishing up 42 hours of coursework, 3.8GPA, thousands of pages of reading, and a pretty strong outlining for a dissertation). I figured, I enjoyed much of the journey, but didn’t need to finish. (My wife graciously, and forcefully said otherwise).

• April 24th, 2024 - 9 days after the 9 year anniversary, I spoke to a couple thousand people about the beauty of embracing Grief as Language, not a journey.

• A week later I successfully defended my doctoral thesis (Grief Doesn’t Have an Expiration Date: Using Practices of Storytelling to Cultivate the Virtue of Patience in Grievers and Would-Be Comforters) in a pair of Jordan Lost & Found 1’s and officially became Dr. Chimdindu John Onwuchekwa.

• A week after that I walked across that stage and (hopefully) put school behind me for the rest of my life.

• May - I started a new job (Sr. Director for Thought Leadership and Innovation) at City to City. In so many ways, this job feels like a custom suit that allows me to use my natural gifts of innovation and galvanizing people and resources to solve future problems that aren’t currently on anyone’s radar.

• June - Signed contracts to write my next two books Grief is a Language: Finding the Right Words When There Are None (dropping 2026), and another one tentatively titled On Revivals and Revolutions: The Forgotten Virtue Behind the World’s Most Memorable Movements (late 2027-2028 - this is a book on the virtue of patience).

• July - I turned 40.

• August - Received my official ADHD diagnosis (explains a lot), as well as learning I have Hashimoto’s Disease (again, explains a lot…I thought my fatigue, mental cloudiness, and unexpected weight gain was just turning 40, and didn’t realize it was my body turning against me). Started treatment for it, and I’m feeling fine now.

• September - Took my 40th birthday trip with 12 of my closest friends to Medellin! This was the trip of a lifetime for me. Throughout the last decade, these were 12 men who have shaped me in ways I’m forever indebted and could never repay.

• October-November —> I’ve been in the lab…In the thick of planning for WE GO ON TOUR ROUND 3. A 30 city tour (across 3 continents) crafted by storytellers, filmmakers, artists, comedians, and designers to create safe, unscary places to acknowledge grief, find hope, and build connection. It starts this Thursday, November 21st in ATL. Would love to have you pull up!

  • If you’re one of my paid subscribers, shoot me a DM and I’ll get you a code for a free ticket AT ANY CITY as a special thank you for supporting this work.

  • If you’re a reader, feel free to use the code ALLHOPE10 for a 25% discount on tickets.

Substack is telling me to WRAP IT UP, so no long goodbyes.

I missed y’all.

See you tomorrow.

I’d love to see y’all.

I first got on Substack because I wanted a low-stakes way to just get my ideas out. They always had a great time dancing around in my head, but my insecurity kept the deadbolt to the apartment locked. So, very few people ever got a chance to hear them. Or read them. I spent most of my time convincing myself I was making the right decision by keeping these thoughts tightly tucked away.

But then on November 23, 2021, for reasons I still don’t quite remember, I took a leap and launched this little newsletter/blog. My first post was Thanks for the Push. It was just a brief shout out to y’all. I signed up for this site, and email subscriptions started to coming in. Up to that point, the only things I wrote on this site were my email and password. But even that was enough to have some of y’all say….I’d like to hear more from John. So I decided to let my thoughts dance in public. And once I took the deadbolt off the door, I realized how great it was. Not just let my ideas out, but to let you in.

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Note to the Reader: Welcome back y’all! Well really, I should say welcome back to me. I imagine y’all haven’t gone anywhere for the past 12 weeks. I planned to take 4 weeks off between the anniversary of my brother’s birthday and the day he passed. March 17th-April 14th of every year are my blackout dates. This year, I ended up taking 12 weeks off (I’ll tell you more about that on Wednesday). I’ve missed y’all and just wanted to offer a brief word picture on hope this morning. To all of my new folks that have subscribed in the past week since seeing/hearing me talk about Grief being a Language….welcome! I’m honored to have you here. I’ve curated this little corner of the internet, so please, don’t just read, but comment (or reply to the email if it hits your inbox). I try to respond to everything. See y’all again this Wednesday.

I’m being buried alive.

Maybe you haven’t said it like this, but you’ve felt it. You know what it’s like be minding your business and, before you know it you end up wandering into pits of hopelessness/despair/frustration where everything that could go wrong, keeps going wrong.

When dealing with your own stuff is too taxing, sometimes some background noise is the best way to drown out the thoughts that are drowning you. But as soon you do, you find yourself eavesdropping on conversations about genocide in the Middle East.

So you turn off the TV and start scrolling apps only to find that this upcoming Presidential election is closer than you thought, and you simultaneously want nothing more than for it to delay and/or all be over at the same time!

And you feel it, deeply. So you go back to try and deal with your own mess only realize things aren’t actually getting better, your problems are just playing musical chairs. The most difficult ones haven’t been solved, they’re just in a different seat. Different problems are front and center right now. The most difficult ones, you thought you solved, are dancing their way right back to you.

If you haven’t said it, now you’re probably saying it.

I’m being buried alive.

If that’s you, I hope a little word picture on roots, corpses and dirt helps you hold on to hope.

Hope: The Difference Between Roots & Corpses

Hope can be seen in the difference between roots and corpses. In other words, it’s possible to be full of heartache and full of hope.

Roots and Corpses both live in the same house. They share the same address, but that’s all they have in common.

Corpses are passive. They rot.

Roots are active. They drink.

Roots, although buried underground, have tapped into a source of life. Roots are LITERALLY buried alive. We bury the dead as a sign that their life on earth has ended. But roots don’t live, roots won’t live, unless they’re buried alive.

For roots, the act of being buried alive, is a new beginning not a tragic ending.

Four Affirmations: Two Negatives + Two Positives

Next time you feel buried alive under the weight of different tangible or ambiguous griefs, I want to you to remember these four things.

1. I AM NOT exempt from daily trials or compounding grief. (Don’t be surprised when they come)

2. I AM being buried alive. (Don’t be surprised when they don’t let up)

3. I AM NOT a corpse. (This isn’t the end for you)

4. I AM a root system. (This could be the beginning of something special.

Peace.

What am I gonna do now?

That question, or some variation of it, haunted me most of 2023. Unless you’re brand new here, you know that up until 15 months ago, I spent my entire adult life as a pastor. I resigned at the end of 2022, and (other than referencing it here) I haven’t provided many other online reflections.

Everyone asks me how I feel about it, and I usually respond with one word.

GREAT!

My eyebrows raise; I unsuccessfully un-suppress a smile and talk about how I’m enjoying this season. What I don’t talk about much is one of the most important lessons I learned last year after going through a bit of an identity/purpose/meaning crisis.

For close to two decades, my days and responsibilities were regimented. No two days were the same, but they all had the same ingredients. It was kind of like making pancakes, or bread, or waffles, or cake, or muffins from scratch. They’re all technically different things, yet they share the same base ingredients. Eggs, flour, water, sugar salt, milk…you get it. My life felt like that.

I knew that every day would have some of the same base ingredients: counseling, studying, preaching, listening to people’s problems, joys, managing staff, helping people navigate big decisions, community outreach, comforting, correcting, etc. The ingredients were the same, the proportions were just different. In some ways, every day was the same. In other ways, every day tasted different.

I NEVER woke up wondering what I would do. That much was already pretty set.

I ALWAYS woke up wondering how much of each thing would I be doing today.

Then I left the pastorate, and suddenly, it became almost impossible to predict not just what my days would be like, but what the rest of my life would be like.

What am I gonna do now? For most of 2023, that question haunted me, and I spent all of 2023 thinking that an answer was the key to its exorcism.

The answer to that question never really came, and I spent most of the year drowning.

Drowning In Possibility

This is the only way I could describe what and how I felt. Possibility is exciting for most people. For 2023 John…not so much. My identity was nestled warmly in the narrow confines of a safe, respectable career that almost everyone assumes would be should be a life-long one. When that changed, for the first time since I was a teenager, I looked out and saw a different kind of possibility.

And it terrified me.

It kind of feels like when my family goes to the beach. My wife might as well be a mermaid with how well she swims and how much she loves the water. Me? I’m more like a dense rock that can’t help but hug the ocean floor. I’m what you call an “almost swimmer” (others might call me an actual drowner, but I’ve found the former designation sounds a little more hopeful). When we look at the same ocean we both see something very different.

Shawndra sees leisure. A fun time floating care-free.

I see liability. All I can think of are the times I almost drowned at age 6 and 11. So I hug the shore, finding security in always being able to see my feet AND the ocean floor.

That’s how it felt at this point 15 months ago. Not really sure where paychecks were gonna come from. I had enough money and speaking gigs to float me through the summer and into the fall. But after that, who knew.

I told myself to relax for at least the first quarter of the year…then move on.

I then slowly convinced myself that if I worked hard trying to secure the rest of my year through the first quarter, I’d better enjoy the remainder of the year. I thought that solving the what would be the key to finding peace.

Before I knew it, I landed a job that seemed custom-made for me, my experiences, gifting, passions, and burdens.

And then Fall 2023 happened. We did round 2 of We Go On and I traveled the country talking about grief for 13 nights over the course of 27 days. I spent my days laughing, eating, road-tripping, laughing, arguing, working out, and laughing with the same people by day. Every day.

Shawndra Onwuchekwa

Rich Perez

David Perdue

Allen Swoope

Leslie Mack

Kimberly Powell

Around that same time, my best friend moved back to ATL after a 5-year hiatus.

Imani Swoope helped to hold my professional and personal life together.

My therapist kept me sane and helped me embrace and love the new things I was learning about myself.

I spent time on my front porch every week with Rich Mullen & Dave Holloman.

I spent almost every morning last fall posted up in the corner of Portrait Coffee, peering over the top of my computer or book watching Aaron Fender & Marcus Hollinger make our dream a reality as they glided around the cafe in their raw denim and church shoes.

And by the end of the year, I realized the question that haunted me had simply vanished. By the end of the year, I looked up and that ghost of a question was nowhere to be found.

When I look back on 2023 the most important lesson I learned didn’t have anything to do with WHAT I do. I’ve learned that the WHAT can’t help but to change. It’ll always change…many times unexpectedly.

A 16-year career doesn’t innoculate you against transition.

The thing that gives me the most joy isn’t WHAT I do; it’s WHO I get to do it with.

The Team You Play With

It’s been said the team you play with is more important than the field you play on. Basically, if you’re with the right people, it doesn’t matter what you do. You could be doing anything, anywhere, and feel right at home. But if you’re not with the right people, it doesn’t matter what you do. You could be doing anything, anywhere and feel lost.

I’ve decided that choosing my team is the most important thing for me. In some ways, it’s the thread that’s run through my entire life. I’m just now realizing it as I approach 40.

So this year, I’m on my Christopher Nolan.

WHO > WHAT

Here’s what I mean. One way you can spot a Christopher Nolan film is to look at his cast. Not his shots. Not a specific genre. His cast. His people.

When it comes to WHAT kind of movies he creates, he does ‘em all. He does sci-fi, comic book, historical non-fiction, etc. His “what’s” are all over the place and ever-changing.

But his “who’s” are something different. They’re constant. Stable. You know if Michael Caine is in the movie, it’s probably a Christopher Nolan film (he’s been in NINE).

Cillian Murphy has played everything from Scarecrow in Batman, Oppenheimer in Oppenheimer, Robert Fischer in Inception, Shivering Soldier#3 in Dunkirk.

Go down the list, and it’s the same for Christian Bale, Matt Damon, Michael Caine, Anne Hathaway, Tom Hardy, and the list goes on and on. Chris Nolan has his team. His people. He loves working with them, and they love working with him. I was reading an article reflecting on this team-building aspect of Nolan and they put it like this: “Nolan is often cited as a dream director to work with, an amazing collaborator who knows how to nudge actors in the direction he needs them to go without being fully dictatorial.““Nolan is often cited as a dream director to work with, an amazing collaborator who knows how to nudge actors in the direction he needs them to go without being fully dictatorial.“

I was drowning in possibility until I realized that my people…my teams were my life raft. When I look back at all the dope stuff I’ve been able to be a part of over these past few years, I know it’s only because of the whos I’ve gotten to do it with.

I bring beauty into the world by building the best teams on the planet.

I have that team, and as far as I’m concerned, they’re the secret to me accomplishing anything of significance as well as relearning who I really am.

After last year, I gathered a group of folks together and just told them, I don’t know what I’m going to do in the future, but I do know the who I’m going to do it with.

Them.

And in some ways…You!

If you’ve made it to the end…thanks for being a part of my team in the ways you have been. This does feel like an Oscar speech a bit. There’s too many people to name. But if you’ve ever left me a comment, an encouraging email, a paid subscription, a kind note, or even just a hug and handshake after passing me in an airport or in line somewhere, I count you as one of my who’s!

You’ve helped me bring beauty into the world.

I pray you find your people that’ll do the same for you.

Answering that question is INFINITELY more important than knowing what you’ll be spending your time on.

Peace.

Who’re your people?

Most people tend to avoid processing their grief. For the same reason they avoid drinking their coffee black.

They know that it's bitter.

They dislike the bitterness.

So in an attempt to distract themselves, they load it up with all types of sugar, and cream (even though they know three out of four of us are lactose intolerant).

What most of y’all don’t know is that coffee’s not a bean. Coffee’s a fruit. It's the pit of a cherry. This fruit takes on the flavor of its soil.

The thing is, though, it only lets the people who lean into the bitterness enjoy the sweetness that's on the backend. So if you lean in and drink what you'll find is there are subtle sweetnesses on the back end that are only reserved for people that will lean in.

Grief is the same way.

So many of us are in distraction experiments, where we’re trying to distract our senses from the bitterness of grief with sex and accomplishments and compliments and all types of stuff.

And in an attempt to mask the bitterness of grief, the only thing that we do is disqualify ourselves from the prerequisite leaning into it that unlocks the sweetnesses on the back end.

Coffee is bitter.

Grief is bitter.

But we don't have to stop there. Both of those can be bittersweet.

I wish somebody would have told me I would feel like this….

If you’re new here

Welcome to Four in the Morning. There’s been quite a few of you that have joined my little curated corner of the internet over these past few months, and I realize I haven’t introduced myself. Over the coming year, you’ll get to know a little bit about me one week at a time. What you’ll soon find out is that I love storytelling and metaphors. Anyone that knows me, knows that’s my dialect of choice. Above, you’ll find the one metaphor that has shaped me (and this newsletter) more than any other in my recent history. Coffee.

The making and consuming of coffee, at Four in the Morning, has become something of a sacred ritual for me. It reminds me of that bitter & sweet, honesty & hope, joy & sorrow aren’t parallel streets—they intersect. I remember when I was dreaming up Four in the Morning, my friend Lukas heard my rambling and meandering and said, “John it sounds like what you’re saying is that every new day begins in the dark.”

That tagline stuck with me. It wasn’t just something I knew I would remember.

This phrase was one that I’d never forget.

Lukas gave me that phrase while taking care of his sweet wife was dying from cancer. I’ve always been in awe of people like Lukas who so (seemingly) effortlessly metabolize their suffering into something beautiful.

You are the recipients of that beauty today. You honor him by sharing something beautiful with someone grieving in desperate need of it.

Thanks for being a part of this group. I hope you enjoy the art above. Shout out to Mark Lopez @ Silkworm.Studio for the animation & Swoope for the music and allowing this to be the intro for his soundtrack to We Go On, the most honest & hopeful album you’ll listen to all year.

Thanks again for stopping by. See y’all in the comments, or next week at the newsletter if you feel like you're too good to say something below.

Peace,

John O

I 

I grew

I grew grew

I grew…I grew up

I grew…up, up, up

Stutter-stuttering

I grew up with a stutter.

I hated it. It wasn’t a life-threatening condition. It was a soul-emptying one. Simultaneously embarrassing and terrifying. They say when you go blind or lose one sense, your others progressively heighten. I know speech isn’t a sense in the traditional sense of the word, but the same truth applies.

When you can’t speak, your eyes and ears improve. You instantly become a fantastic reader and listener.

I soon started hearing facial expressions. Furrowed brows were lips that mouthed silent words of confusion, frustration, pity (not the good kind either), condescension, anxiety, confusion, and frustration (I know I already used those last adjectives. My repetition wasn’t a typo; it was just a bit of an example. If reading them in print twice is frustrating, imagine how exhausting it is to read them on every brow aimed in your direction).

You begin mixing up the syntax in a way that doesn’t make any real sense; you just hope people won’t notice. Sometimes, when the adjective you want to use starts with a d, you put it after the noun because it’s easier for you to get it out. You rearrange your syntax so much that people begin wondering if English is your first language. The furrowed brows are subtitled again, and you can read between every one of these lines.

Not this again.
Not him again.
Hurry up and move on.
Why are you stuck on these words and these phrases?

Soul-Emptying.

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Move On

Everyone knows the feeling of speaking before you’ve thought things through. Wanting to pick up the words that so carelessly fell from your lips. And apologize to everyone for speaking without thinking. Very few people know the agony of wanting to take back not your words but your thoughts. Very few know what it’s like to want to take back these thoughts because you know you’ll never be able to express them. And the longer they sit unexpressed, they create an indigestion of sorts that makes you envious and bitter of the someones who will eventually come along and say your insightful remark or steal your joke (that would never be funny coming from your mouth because the timing of the punch line would always be off).

Very few people know what it’s like for the whole world to beg YOU to

MOVE ON and

TALK ABOUT SOMETHING ELSE!?

Very few know the internal ache that pulsates in your diaphragm when you so desperately want to MOVE ON and TALK ABOUT SOMETHING ELSE….but you can’t. You just can’t seem to finish the sentence and get the words out.

But then, you grow up.

And in some ways, you don’t outgrow the stutter, but you grow out of it. In College you learn that people can’t sing and stutter at the same time, so you start to do spoken word (because you know you can’t sing). The same principles apply. The controlled breathing. The predictable melodic cadence that will follow you for the rest of your life. The inadvertent adoption of East Coast pronunciations of certain consonants and vowels because they were really the only ones with quality video and audio footage back then.

It sounds almost like raps, but you grew up in the suburbs, and despite your athletic frame, no one will believe you had a hard life. Your eyes are too gentle, and you like to show your gap-toothed smile too much. So you call it spoken word and learn to control your breathing. You learn how effective dramatic pauses can be. (People often think you’re inserting a dramatic pause, but you’re not. You’ve learned to know what consonant combinations trip you up, so you hold your breath, catch it long enough to rehearse the sounds in your head, remind your heart to keep beating, and tell your soul it’s okay if you mess up and reveal to the world you still stutter. It all happens in a split second, but you’ve controlled it, and now you release it smoothly).

The brows furrow differently. You read between those lines, and those lips aren’t frowning. They’re smiling.

You learn to talk about a full range of topics. You can talk spirituality, sports, socio-economic development, real estate, entertainment, music, art, biography, hip-hop, etc. You make a living off it. Your speaking literally takes you all over the world.

Finally, you’ve learned how to MOVE ON. You’re pretty good when it comes to TALKING ABOUT SOMETHING ELSE. Finally, you can meet the Old World’s request to MOVE ON and TALK ABOUT SOMETHING ELSE. You’re ready.

But then, your brother dies. One of the people who never seemed to care that you stuttered or teased you about it because he knew how much it hurt you. The one person not frustrated or even slightly annoyed by it is gone.

You can’t help but to start talking about his death.

And grief.

And for the first time, you don't want to move on even though you’ve learned how to talk about other things.

Not So Fast

You blink twice, and nine years have passed. You’ve spent the past 2 years sharing your writing publicly in book form. You host two nationwide tours on it. You write a substack. You executive produced a mini-doc and an album. You finished a doctoral dissertation and degree on the topic. You start to get tired of talking about it, sensing the rest of the world would be happy for you to MOVE ON like they did when you stuttered.

But now that you can talk about other things, people are begging you to keep talking about the same stuff.

They don’t want you to MOVE ON.

They’re happy to hear the same words and phrases.

And you stumble into a soul-filling realization.

Maybe stuttering isn’t that bad.

Maybe truth stutters a bit.

No truth sinks in the first time we hear it. We need to hear the same message again.

And again.

And again.

Maybe it’s okay to be known as the “grief guy” for a little bit longer. The people who lose someone tomorrow will be happy you wrote something about it today.

Dear Younger John,

While you’re learning how to speak words of hope to the world, do me a favor.

Love Yourself.

Stutter and all.

It’s gonna come in handy one day.

Peace,

John

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I want to offer a special shout-out to Ken Fentress, Rebekah Giannini, Valerie & Kyle Smith for jumping on as my first 4 paid subscribers. Anyone who knows me knows that my mission statement is to bring beauty into the world by building the best teams on the planet. I randomly turned on the Paid Subscribers last week in hopes of being able to start supporting up-and-coming writers, creators, etc. Thank y’all for being a part of the team I’m building. Can’t wait to see all the beautiful things we’ll make together.

Anger is the best hiding place for anybody seeking to conceal pain or anguish of spirit. – bell hooks

I'm okay!!

I'm okay!?

I'm okay.

At least, that's what I kept telling myself. All right. It’s January 2016. I’m eight months removed from starting my third church in 10 years. I'm nine months removed from burying brother.

But I'm okay.

January 2016, remember. I'm in my forest green 2003 Toyota Camry, turning right into the parking lot of Lenox Mall in Atlanta. I'm only there pit-stopping to take back a pair of Huraches to the Nike store (you know they run half a size small). I'm on the way back from leading chapel for the Texas A&M men's basketball team. I was friends with the coach then, and he asked me to come and talk to them about Grief, hope, and the stories that take us from one side to the other. Normally, I’d be upset at how long it takes to find a parking spot, but today was different. I didn’t mind waiting.

Why? Because I can’t keep the corners of my mouth straight. They keep floating up to my ears. Normally, I’m not this self-absorbed, but today…it’s different. I KILLED it with the team. They were laughing. Crying. They hugged me when I left and kept applauding out the door. Even I was impressed at how quickly I hurdled my Grief and began to help other people deal with their own.

I’m okay!

Or so I thought. A little parking lot skirmish would show me otherwise.

No sooner than the spot I was clearly next in line for becomes vacant, a group of kids swoop in and snatch it. Immediately, I go white-knuckled behind this beige steering wheel (which lets you a little bit into my state of mind. Do you know how hard it is for a Nigerian brother my complexion to go white-knuckled?) To say I was angry was an understatement.

I’m woo-saa’ing for a second and gently tap my horn while mouthing to the kids that the spot was mine.

I wish you could have seen the genuine remorse in their eyes. Incredibly apologetic, they mouthed back,

"Don't trip; we just planned on pulling into the spot so we could back out and go the other way."

So I relax. The melanin feels welcome to return to my knuckles.

And I wait.

And I wait.

And I wait.

And the car doesn't move.  

As I start to inch up and look out of my right window, I see this group of kids (this is the best word that I can use to describe how they slithered out the car) scurrying out the backseat of the vehicle. Laughing.

AT ME?!

Mind you, I’m still a pastor at the time.

I don’t know what happened to my composure. I mean, I just had it a minute ago, but now I can’t find it. The melanin rushes out of my knuckles quicker than when Black folks notice a group of people running away from, well,…anything.

So I rolled down my right window.

And I look and I just aim my eyeballs right at these kids.

And…..

And I cuss ‘em out. I mean cuss cuss. The cussing wasn't even the most surprising thing. The most surprising thing was the fluency that I retained. Feel me? I took four years of Spanish in high school and I lost it quick. I have trouble finding a baño whenever I’m in Central or South America (or certain parts of Texas). And even though I hadn't cussed anybody out in 15 years, I was stringing together those phrases like a macaroni necklace. It was effortless.

What makes this whole scene worse is now that I'm done with my tantrum, a space opens next to the one I lost.

When I came to my senses, I realized I hadn't moved past my grief at all. My emotional room wasn't cleaned. I just really good at packing my grief (and everything it touched) in the closet. My Grief wasn’t under control; it was merely under the surface.

Instantly, shame nestles my shoulders with all the comfort you'd expect from a wet blanket in a Minneapolis winter.

This isn't me. Something is off. Something big.

I’m NOT OKAY

I pause for a bit and call my wife and two of my best friends. And I unload. I tell them what went down, and I whisper the words,

“you know. I’m NOT okay!”

I expected them to scold me. But instead, they were so gentle with me. Their kind words reached up and massaged all the tension out my tight shoulders. And they all so gently replied,

“WE KNOW you’re not okay. We’ve just been waiting for YOU to realize it.”

And those words made me realize the only person rushing to finish. Nobody, absolutely no one else expected me to finish my journey that quick. That was the first thing that helped me to slow down.

So then, a month later, my church granted me a sabbatical. Without having to preach or counsel anyone, I could no longer numb my broken heart with the anesthesia that comes from helping people put theirs back together.

I had spent the past year asking myself these questions every day.

• Would today be the day that I want to do something other than sit in the dark?

• Would today be the day when somebody asked me how I was, and I’d be able to say fine without fear of nose going Pinnochio right in front of their eyes?

• Would today be the first day that I didn't try to find a way to sneak Sam into a conversation to remind people that I'm still sad? Or to make sure that I didn't forget him?

And I realized nothing was wrong with my questions, but everything was wrong with what the answers did to me. They drove me to despair and despondency, feeling like I was a failure because I hadn't reached a finish line. And let me tell you, as I approach the ninth anniversary of my brother’s passing, I still haven't found a finish line (much less reached one) to this thing called Grief. Because…. there isn’t one.

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One of the most important lessons that I learned throughout all of this is

Grief doesn’t have an expiration date.

Grief doesn't have an expiration date

Grief is a non-perishable food item. Grief is that can of beans that’s been sitting at the back of your Granny’s pantry since WWII. Songs, memories, or parking lot skirmishes tend to unexpectedly pop the top off the Grief, and it smells fresh. Your body responds to the loss like it happened this morning.  

Grief is much worse than you think. We live in a world that will tell you that time heals all wounds; we’ve determined that that in fact is a lie!

Do you know what comes after Grief? More Grief. Life becomes incredibly complicated. Especially when we’re running towards an imaginary finish line. But if we start to embrace the fact that maybe there isn’t a finish, we change how we engage with Grief.

Maybe Grief isn't an event that we hurdle past. Maybe our deepest losses are an invitation into a convo with Grief that we’ll have for the rest of our lives. And here's the opening words of that conversation. Are you ready?

What Grief tells us, what Grief constantly reminds us of, is this one truth.

Everything in this world that you love, you WILL lose.

It’s like gravity. It won’t be argued with.

That's not meant to make you sad. It's meant to make you sober.

It's meant to make you a better more present version of yourself.

It's meant to remind you that the most valuable moments in life are as fragile as they are precious. Whenever I’m ignoring my daughter because my nose is buried in your phone, Grief slithers up my spine, taps me on the shoulder, and whispers into my ears,

Everything you love, you WILL lose. So instead of burying your nose in your phone, nestle it in your daughter. She won’t be this age, or in this house, or in this world, forever. And if you don’t get that blood pressure under control, you won’t be either.

Maybe it's helpful for us not to think of Grief as a journey with stages. Journeys start and have a definite end. Grief doesn’t end.

Maybe it's more helpful to think of Grief as a language.

Grief is a Language

The goal of language isn’t finishing. It’s fluency.

If humanity were a country, Grief would be the official language. Even though Grief is the official language, it's nobody's native tongue. We all have to learn it. Don’t believe me? Compare the sparse attendance at your next family reunion with the near-perfect attendance every time you have to bury someone. It's humanity’s official language. Grief unites us.

However, no one is a native Grief Speaker. Take Nigeria for example. It’s a country of 200 million people comprised of hundreds of native dialects and tribes. Do you know what the official language of Nigeria is? English. A learned language that unites people. If you're going to be connected across that landscape, that's the language that you have to learn. Grief is the same; we must learn how to speak it.

And I want y'all to know this. The best way to learn a language is by immersion. It's not by sitting in rows. It's not by Duolingo. It's by immersing yourself in film and conversation and stories and substacks and music and being in it to the point where you learn how to speak it.

Fluency Comes From Mastering Dialects

Every language has multiple dialects. When it comes to Grief, there’s at least two.

Tangible Grief & Ambiguous Grief.

People know how to speak tangible Grief well. When someone you love dies, their body is dropped into the ground. Once the tears begin sprinting down your cheek chasing the buried body, people can connect the dots. You’re surrounded with hugs, handshakes, bouquets of “sorry for loss,” and casseroles (if that’s your sort of thing). You have multiple hands to help you uphold that Grief.

The other dialect most people are unfamiliar with is ambiguous Grief. This is different. Ambiguous loss is the death of a dream. The death of a relationship. The death of a friendship. The diagnosis of a parent with dementia, where even though they're alive, you talk about them in the past tense.

These are all deaths with no funerals. Funerals with no caskets. And when your body physiologically grieves IN THE SAME WAY, and those same tears of loss start sprinting down your cheeks….people are puzzled. They have no fallen body to connect the tears to. So instead of words of comfort, you're pelted with questions at best (why are you sad?) or critiques at worst (boy, stop all that crying, it ain’t like nobody died). This Grief is a weight that you have to carry by yourself.

Worse, these ambiguous griefs usually come as a delayed package deal with the tangible ones. They often don’t appear until after time, and forgetfulness erodes the rock of support that was your initial grief community.

cuídate

Navigating Holiday Grief

Welcome to Cuídate, A space dedicated to the art of mindfulness where stories create room for joy, gentleness, healing, and a renewed sense of purpose. Please note that the support from paid subscribers makes all the writing and teaching on this Substack possible. If my work pulls your heart strings and you want access to more honest essays and a communi…

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2 years ago · 28 likes · 6 comments · Josefina H. Sanders

Very few are fluent. So ambiguous loss is a weight we’re forced to carry all by ourselves. (And sometimes we don’t even have ourselves to help carry the weight because we’ve decided what to do with our sadness before discovering why it’s there). Over the past few years, I’ve found several people who are as fluent in Grief as I’ve ever experienced. And I’ve found them all here. Nova, Robert, & Josefina are three that immediately come to mind.

Nova Reid's Substack

The unspoken grief of when friendships end

“Most relationships end. Friendships, romances, they break” These words, which open the trailer of Ava DuVernay’s latest film; Origin, floored me. The searing honesty. The heartbreak of this reality. The pain of it. The grief. The grief of when a friendship ends, is one of the most painful and enduring experiences I’ve had and is something that is not spo…

Read more

2 years ago · 205 likes · 57 comments · Nova Reid

Fluency Begins with Mastering Phrases

The goal of today (whatever day you read this) is for us to start the journey in fluency. Fluency always begins with mastering one phrase.

Como Estas?

Kedu?

Bonjour!

If you follow anything I do, there’s one phrase that you’ll constantly hear, wear, read, or see from me. It’s the best place to begin once you realize there’s no end.

Tragedy doesn’t ruin anyone. Hopelessness does.

I hope that as time passes and Grief hides away, only to resurface clothed in an “anger costume״ during your next parking lot skirmish, you’re surprised by a more refreshing fluency than I was.

I hope these words help you hold on to hope today.

Peace,

John O

P.S. What phrases have been most helpful to you in your journey towards Grief Fluency?

There are years that ask questions and years that answer.”
– Zora Neale Hurston

Years that Ask Questions

All I remember about April 14, 2015, are the unimportant things. I remember it was a Tuesday. I could close my eyes today and retrace the layout of the Longhorn Steakhouse in Orlando. I’ll never forget the way my knees literally knocked together before giving out. I’ll always remember the way the faces on the unsuspecting diners so effortlessly twisted between terror, disgust, and sympathy as they looked (and tried not to look) at me screaming the words

HE’S DEAD??

HE’S DEAD!?

HE’S DEAD!!

at my iPhone.

Before I had a chance to protest or offer a prayer for God to heal or fix or repair or change or whatever we expect Him to do in those times, my brother was gone. And I was left holding nothing but the anxiety that comes with knowing I would have to put my mom, dad, brothers, and sisters (and all the unsuspecting bystanders in their orbit) through what I just went through as I relayed the news that my brother was dead. I knew this day would be the worst day of my life, and that it would likely never be redeemed.

Just like that, my brother Sam was gone.

My apprenticeship with sorrow had begun.

The Wonder Years

Like all apprentices on their first day, when the grief first hit, I had no idea what I was doing. But unlike real apprentices, I had no one beside me—no mentor to guide, teach, or instruct me. As a result, I was about to do a whole lot of damage, both to myself and everyone orbiting around me pulled down by the gravity of my grief.

My brother died four days after my wife and I had received news of a failed adoption. I buried my brother quickly before getting right back to work, starting a church six weeks later in a part of town where tragedy was a long-term tenant, routinely visiting each of our neighbors without warning. We were a young church unacquainted with processing grief; and as providence would have it, the death of my brother was the first domino in a seemingly never-ending series that began to fall. And I, as a thirty-year-old pastor who just suffered my first loss was responsible for helping to pick up these fallen dominoes.

I remember fragments of these days: dreading stepping into the pulpit, crying through more sermons than I can count, putting my wife through the wringer, and ultimately feeling like a fraud because of how hard it was to believe the good things I was preaching about God—His wisdom, His kindness, His grace, His care, His compassion.

My faith crumbled quicker than molded bread and stayed in pieces for longer than I’d ever care to admit. One of the only shreds of consolation during that time was this CS Lewis quote I read in A Grief Observed as he was reflecting on the death of his wife.

God has not been trying an experiment on my faith or love in order to find out their quality. He knew it already. It was I who didn't. In this trial He makes us occupy the dock, the witness box, and the bench all at once. He always knew that my temple was a house of cards. His only way of making me realize the fact was to knock it down.

The ounce of hope I found in that quote reminded me that my shattered faith was not my fault—nor was it irreparable. But I wasn’t equipped to piece it back together. If this issue was going to be solved, the solution would have to come from Him. All I could do was wait.

As the days passed, I did the best I could during the day only to realize that when I got home, my best wasn’t good enough. I was new at grief. In the show The Morning Show, character Hannah Shoenfield (played by Gugu Mbatha-Raw) sits in a car with a production assistant, processing her proficiency at speaking to hurting people during a series of California fires that have left people with nothing. The PA asks how Hannah came to be so good at it, and Hannah simply replies, “I’m smart at tragedy. There’s nothing you can say to make it better, but there’s a lot of stuff you can say to make it worse. I try not to make it worse.” I wish I’d had even this much advice back then.

I didn’t. Those years in between were fumbled in so many ways.

Two years later, things cleared up a bit.

Years that Answer

“Part of grief’s tyranny is that it robs you from remembering the things that matter” - Chimamanda Adichie

It was April 14^th, 2017. It was a Friday. I was still pastoring the Atlanta church we started a few years prior, but on this Friday, I was in the NICU in Columbus, Georgia. After a decade of praying for children, God answered, and my daughter was born about a week before this Good Friday. Because she was born premature, she still couldn’t breathe on her own (she had a breathing machine), she couldn’t eat on her own (tubes were everywhere), and she couldn’t regulate her body temperature, so she had to spend twenty-two hours a day in an incubator.

It's funny the things you remember. I’m a terrible singer and think of myself as tone-deaf, but I still remember the keys that all the beeps and monitors were in. I’ll never forget seeing my daughter’s first smile through the smudged glass of the incubator. I remember how uncomfortable it was to hold her with her breathing tube constantly getting in the way. I was always mindful of my embrace of her because I didn’t want to scrunch the tube up.

I didn’t mind—it was better than not holding her—but I do remember it feeling like an obstacle.

The one thing I’ll never forget, however, is what happened on that Friday.

That Good Friday.

I had to drive back to Atlanta to preach the Good Friday service, so my wife let me have all the skin-to-skin time that day. I remember holding my daughter and reading to her a chapter on adoption in one of my favorite books. Even while holding my daughter in my hands, all I could think about was death.

April 14th had been more than a sad day. It was a blackout day where Joy was grounded and unable to fly. Despite this amazing blessing, this year the sadness hit differently. It was also the two-year anniversary of my brother’s death, and I was holding my daughter in my arms, grieving the fact they’d never meet.

And then, the doctor came and out of nowhere snatched my daughter out of my hands.

Before I had a chance to protest or offer a prayer for God to heal or fix or repair or change or whatever we expect him to do in those times, she was gone. Out of arms. By the time I turned around, the doctor placed her back into my arms, and she was noticeably lighter. My confusion evaporated as he whispered these words in my ear:

“Today’s the day she breathes on her own.”

He had only removed her from my arms to take out her breathing machine. She no longer needed to live life hindered. She could breathe on her own. Before I knew it, me and her were reunited with no more tubes between us.

In an instant, my thoughts of April 14^th, God’s goodness, grief, and death changed forever.

Tears of sorrow and tears of joy both canalled into the corners of my mouth, and I realized they both tasted the same. In an instant, grief and hope, joy and sorrow intersected. I learned that grief and hope aren’t parallel streets that we travel down based on life’s circumstances.

They’re winding roads that intersect at some of the most unexpected points.

When the Almighty guides us down the paths of grief, He isn’t leading us away from hope. He’s trying to lead us to the point where those streets intersect so that we never believe the lie that our joy is tied to our circumstances.

Grief doesn’t need to be avoided. It’s calling for us to lean in. And even though our faith is shattered in pieces, we’re never alone. We’re carried along until we reach the point where it begins to make sense.

The only thing I was missing in the two-year gap was the patience to let God finish writing the story.

The Stories that Hold Us

Over the past seven years, I’ve shared this story hundreds of times to thousands of people. Each time, they have expressed their thanks as they have shared that hearing that story gives them the patience to allow God to continue to write their own.

One of the most important lessons for His children to learn is that tragedy doesn’t ruin any one of us.

Hopelessness does.

You only need to hold on to hope. These stories help us hold on.

Stories change us because stories are about change.

When speaking the language of Grief, stories serve as repeated reminders to the grievers that change is possible. The tide has turned before; it’ll happen again. The role of the poet or storyteller, as Northrop Frye puts it is, “is not to tell you what happened, but what happens: not what did take place, but the kind of thing that always does take place.”

Today, I tell this story to remind us, that while God had a lot of children, He has no favorite children.

If He’s written a good story for one of us, He’s inclined to do it again.

I’ve shared mine. I’d love to hear yours! Because in the thickness of grief’s fog, I forget that fog isn’t solid. I’m tempted to stand still and I need other stories to help me move forward.

Would love for you to share your stories of hope in the comments. Take as much space as you need. I’ll repost some of the most encouraging ones this weekend here so the rest of the family can use the threads of your storyline to hold on to hope.

Peace!