LOOKING BACK — LETTING GO
Some seasons aren’t about building — they’re about becoming.
Sit down with me for a moment.
This one is not loud.
It’s settled.
DEDICATION
To the friends who have recently taken the time to sit, call, ask, and listen — you know who you are. Those conversations have moved me more than you realize.
To Marty — whose ears are always open to my soul. Her love, her steadiness, and her trust in our Heavenly Father remind me daily of what matters most — our love and our Lord Jesus Christ.
To the readers of Sparks by G~ — your continued encouragement and presence remind me that this work matters. Thank you for being here.
And to the lessons of this life — which continue to teach me how to let go with gratitude rather than fear.
SCRIPTURE
“Even to your old age, I am He; and even to gray hairs I will carry you; I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry, and will deliver you.” — Isaiah 46:4 (NKJV)
THE HOOK
Some seasons aren’t announced.
They arrive quietly —
and ask you to release what the last one required you to carry.
THE STORY
On September 8, 2020, I was officially deemed disabled.
Not loosely.
Not debatably.
Officially.
I later learned I could have qualified years earlier.
I chose not to file.
I still believed grit could outrun pain.
The road since then has been longer — and harder — than most people know.
My wife knows.
And Jesus knows.
And yet, somehow, that road led me here.
Writing almost every day.
Finding shape in memory.
Meaning in pain.
Purpose in quieter hours.
THE MOMENT
I refuse to give pain authority over me.
But I will let it teach me.
I have had to grieve the physical strength I once carried so easily.
For most of my life, strength wasn’t something I worked toward — it was simply there.
Endurance.
Stamina.
The ability to push through long days and longer seasons.
I trusted it.
I built around it.
And losing it meant grieving two things at once:
What I can no longer do.
And who I felt like when I could.
Grit can outrun a lot of things.
It cannot outrun time.
THE TURN
Years before the disability ruling, I survived what most did not.
One of three out of eight hundred thirty-seven in the early West Nile strain —
back when the experts were still learning what they were facing.
The CDC has tracked my case since 2006.
That illness reshaped my body long before I was ready to admit it.
I did not outrun it.
I endured it.
And enduring something like that changes how you measure strength.
My body is not what it was.
But my mind is stronger.
Clearer.
Quieter.
More discerning.
Everything — the work, the pain, the responsibility, the losses —
has led to this point.
Not a decline.
Not a summit.
The narrow point in an hourglass where one season passes into the next.
THE DRIFT
There is a voice that keeps a man measuring the wrong things.
You should be further along.
You’re running out of time.
This isn’t what you had planned.
That voice sounds like honesty.
It isn’t.
Honesty assesses clearly.
This voice compares endlessly.
There is a kind of reflection that looks like wisdom on the outside —
but is just grief wearing a productive coat.
Cataloguing losses.
Measuring distance from where you thought you’d be.
Holding the old season up against the new one
and calling the difference failure.
That voice will keep a person looking back
without ever being able to let go.
I know. Because I kept score of it. For years.
THE REFLECTION
When you work steel against stone, a small burr rolls to one side.
You turn it over.
You work the other side.
Eventually the burr breaks away.
What remains is edge.
Not louder.
Sharper.
Defined.
This season feels like that.
Not muscle — refinement.
Not striving — alignment.
My friends are growing older with me.
Some were taken in ways that still don’t fully make sense.
I have buried dogs who breathed puppy breath into my face
and exhaled their last breath in my hands.
Raising an animal from first breath to final one
teaches you something sacred:
Nothing is promised except the time we are given.
And the time we are given is enough —
if we stop spending it wishing it looked different.
WALKAWAY LINE
Some seasons are not for expansion — they are for refinement.
SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT
What are you still carrying from a season that has already ended — and what would it look like to finally set it down?
MY PRAYER
Heavenly Father,
Show me what I am still gripping
from seasons You have already closed.
The strength I built my identity around.
The plans that didn’t survive the road.
The version of myself I keep returning to
as the standard.
Teach me to release it —
not with regret,
but with gratitude for what it produced.
You have carried me through every season I thought would break me.
You are carrying me still.
Let what remains after the refining
be sharp enough to cut through what matters
and quiet enough to hear what You are saying.
In Jesus’ name, Amen.
ABOUT G~
G~ writes from lived experience — exploring identity, authority, and time through the lens of faith, trial, leadership, and surrender. His reflections are not meant to condemn or hype, but to steady. Rooted in covenant, forged through adversity, and anchored under the authority of Jesus Christ, his work invites readers to examine who governs their lives — and to live intentionally under truth.
If what you’ve read resonates with your journey, feel free to reach out.
G~