Alone
at the Altar
Some stories are written because they are remembered.
This one was written because it was lived.
Before There
Was a Book,
There Was Life.
Alone at the Altar is not a work of fiction. It is a true story drawn from my own life, my faith, my family, my experiences, and the prayers I carried through seasons I did not understand.
This story grew out of years of trying to hold together a marriage, a family, a home, my responsibilities, my work, and my faith. There were beautiful moments, painful moments, questions without answers, and circumstances I could not control.
Some of what happened was easy to remember. Some of it was difficult to put into words. But all of it became part of the journey that eventually led me to write this book.
This Is Not a Story I Had to Imagine.
For six and a half years, I tried to hold together a life I deeply cared about. I worked, provided, loved, prayed, and kept trying even when I did not know what the next day would bring.
There were struggles within my marriage and family, seasons of separation, loss, unanswered questions, and moments when I felt like I was carrying more than I could hold.
Fatherhood made those years even more important. My child was never simply part of the circumstances. My child was one of the reasons I continued to fight, continued to pray, and continued to believe that God was not finished with my story.
During those years, music became more than something I listened to. Certain songs became part of what helped me keep going when I was hurting and did not know what to do next. Two songs by Karen Peck & New River, Hold Me While I Cry and Special Love, became especially meaningful to me. They met me in moments when I was dealing with separation, loss, unanswered questions, and emotions that were sometimes difficult to carry. I would listen to those songs and find enough strength to make it through another day, another conversation, another disappointment, and another moment when I wanted to give up.
Those songs did not fix my circumstances, but they reminded me that I could keep going. They became part of the soundtrack of a season when I was trying not to fall apart. Looking back, I can see that God used those songs to speak to me when I could not always find the words myself.
I did not simply hear those songs. I leaned on them. They helped me keep going.
These pages come from those real experiences. They are not written to make me the hero or anyone else the villain. They are written to tell the truth about what I lived, what I felt, what I questioned, and what I learned.
Some of the Most Important Parts of This Story Were Prayed in Silence.
There were things I could not explain to everyone around me, so I took them to God. Some prayers were spoken at an altar. Others were prayed in private, in moments when I had no idea what God was doing or how everything would turn out.
The altar became a place where I could stop trying to hold everything together and simply bring it to God.
People could see me praying. They could not see everything I was carrying.
I was alone at the altar, but I was talking to God.
And being alone at the altar was not the same thing as being abandoned.
The God Who Did.
There were prayers I did not immediately see answered. There were seasons when I could not understand why things were happening or why some prayers seemed to remain unanswered.
But with time, I began to see what I could not always see while I was living through it.
God had been there.
He was there in the questions, in the tears, in the uncertainty, and in the moments when I thought I could not carry anything else.
This book does not claim that every question has an easy answer. It tells what happened when I brought those questions to God and discovered that His presence was greater than my understanding.
Because the Story Is Real.
I wrote Alone at the Altar because I know what it is like to pray for something for years and still not understand why it fell apart.
I know what it is like to carry questions that other people cannot see. I know what it is like to stand at an altar while your heart is carrying a story nobody else knows.
I am not writing this because everything has been explained or because every wound has disappeared. I am writing because these things happened, because they changed me, and because God met me in the middle of them.
Maybe someone reading these pages has been standing in a similar place. Maybe they have wondered whether God hears them. Maybe they have wondered whether their unanswered prayer means they have been forgotten.
This is why I chose to tell the story.
Not because it is perfect. Not because I have every answer. But because it is real.
Someone Heard What
Nobody Else Could Hear.
I thought I was alone at the altar.
I was never alone with God.
There were prayers nobody else heard. There were tears nobody else saw. There were questions nobody else could answer.
But God was there.
That is the story I am inviting you to read.