Just Write

Just Write.

Four years ago, God whispered two simple words that would change my life.

"Just write."

That was it.

No outline.

No book title.

No roadmap.

No explanation.

Just a call.

I remember asking during a special time of prayer, "What do You want us to write together?". I was more than excited.

Silence.

The silence of absence. No. The silence of trust.

He wasn't asking me to create something spectacular and world-changing. He was inviting me to become someone.

So, reluctantly, I picked up my pen, having no idea where this journey would lead....

___

Then, one year later, everything changed.

We said a final goodbye to our beautiful daughter, Aleya.

There are moments in life that don't simply break your heart. They strip you down until nothing you remember remains.

Every illusion of strength. Every layer of self-protection. Every carefully constructed identity.

Gone.

I found myself spiritually naked.

Emotionally naked.

Mentally naked.

Completely exposed before God.

There was nowhere left to hide. No more covering the places shame had kept locked away for decades. No more pretending I was okay.

Only grief. Only Jesus.

And there, in what became the garden of grief and glory, I heard the same gentle whisper.

"Just write."

So I did. For two years.

Journal after journal filled the dusty shelves of my library.

Thousands of handwritten pages.

Pages soaked with tears and stained with hope.

Grief and grace.

Crushing and comfort.

Questions and quiet.

Heartache and healing.

Day after day, it was just the two of us.

My Father and me.

And, somewhere in those sacred conversations, something unexpected happened.

He wasn't simply helping me survive the loss of my daughter.

He was setting me free.

The man who had spent decades cowering in hidden corners of the prison of his own soul slowly stepped into the light.

His light pierced places I didn't even know still existed.

Not because my pain disappeared. But because His presence became more real than my pain...

___

Then came another invitation.

Not, "Just write."

But...

Write from the place of your deepest longing...the place that now covers you completely.

So, in August of 2025, after years of filling journals no one else would ever read, I sat down with a blank page.

Seven days later, I held the manuscript for my first completed book in twelve years.

"LOVE Fierce"

That book wasn't born from ambition. It was born from surrender.

It became my testimony that the fiercest love the world has ever known is the love of Christ. A love that meets us in our deepest wounds, transforms us from the inside out, and calls us to live differently. My hope has always been simple: that every reader would encounter a love so relentless and life-giving that they would leave changed. More whole. More courageous. More committed to loving God, loving themselves, and loving others with everything they have....

___

Almost immediately, another fire began to burn. Blazing from a lifetime of serving those who served others.

This time, it was for leaders.

"LOVE Fierce: Leaders" took me somewhere I had never written before.

It became part leadership guide. Part story. Part invitation.

A pathway for leaders to discover that leadership isn't about influence, strategy, or results. It's about committing to the choice of becoming the kind of person whose love lights the lives of everyone around them.

As I wrote, I realized God wasn't simply giving me another book.

He was giving language to a calling He had been forming in me for years.

___

Then came one more unexpected gift. God rekindled something beautiful between Darla and me.

At Aleya's Celebration of Life, we made a promise. We would keep telling her story.

That promise became "Aleya: Grit and Grace."

Together, we told the story of a little girl who walked through life with remarkable courage, contagious joy, and an unwavering friendship with Jesus.

She was never ours to keep.

She was always God's light entrusted to us for a little while.

Then God did something only He could have orchestrated.

On the day Aleya's graduating class gathered for commencement...the day she would have crossed that stage...Darla and I sat hand in hand in the stands celebrating her classmates.

During the ceremony, my Ring doorbell sent a notification.

A package had been delivered.

When we returned home, it was waiting for us.

Aleya's book.

I couldn't have planned that moment if I had tried.

The Father who sees every sparrow and numbers every hair had written another chapter.

As one story quietly came to its earthly close, another began.

Only God writes stories like that.

Looking back, I still don't understand all the ways of my Father.

There are questions I still carry.

There are tears that still come.

There are places that still ache.

But I know this.

He is faithful.

Faithful in the silence.

Faithful in the crushing.

Faithful in the waiting.

Faithful in the writing.

Every page has become another reminder that He is always creating something beautiful, even when I cannot yet see it.

___

My entire life, I've struggled with writing. Working to find the perfect word to reveal a response I wanted. The accolades and admiration that came from being called an "author" was a trophy I desired... and now, through the love and grace of God, I see I never, ever needed.

For every word He has entrusted to me, I am grateful.

Words that point toward love.

Words that point toward truth.

Words that point toward life.

And somehow, I have this quiet confidence that all of this...

was only the beginning.

Today, I'm grateful that I'm a writer... not for me, but for the call God has placed in me.

And by His grace, the stories are just beginning as I simply and faithfully...

Just write!