There are seasons in life that you do not recognize as turning points until you are standing on the other side of them. For me, that season became a journey through marriage, fatherhood, loss, unanswered questions, and a faith that had to become more than something I talked about at church.
Two songs by Karen Peck & New River, Special Love and Hold Me While I Cry, became part of that journey. I heard them during a time when I was carrying more than I knew how to explain, and their words gave me a place to breathe when my own words were difficult to find. They did not tell me how my story would end. They simply helped me keep going while I was living it.
At the beginning of this story, I believed I could work hard enough, love deeply enough, and remain committed enough to keep my family together. I was a husband and a father, and I took those responsibilities seriously. I wanted to provide, protect, and do what I believed was right. I did not yet understand how much of life would eventually be outside my control.
As circumstances changed, questions began to replace the certainty I once had. I did not understand everything happening around me, and I could not make every problem disappear by working harder. Eventually there were losses and separation that forced me to face something I had spent years avoiding: there are things a person can fight for with everything in their heart and still not be able to control.
That was where prayer became more than a habit. It became the place where I could bring the things I could not fix. Sometimes I had words. Sometimes I had only tears. Sometimes I could do nothing more than kneel at an altar and tell God that I needed Him.
This is not a story about pretending everything worked out exactly as I wanted. It is not a story about making myself the hero or someone else the villain. It is the story of what I experienced, what I carried, what I learned about love and responsibility, and what happened to my faith when the answers did not come as quickly as I wanted them to.
The chapters that follow are not separate stories. They are different parts of the same journey. First came the struggle to hold everything together. Then came the prayers, the fatherhood battle, and finally the realization that God had been present even in the places where I could not see Him working.
I thought I was alone at the altar. Looking back, I can see that I was never alone with God.