About

That's me! The ex-godless heathen on the right, with my family. God is so Good!

After a long life of addiction and godless living, and even denying that God existed, I fell asleep at the wheel on the night of June 26, 2016. My car flipped end over end, and I got thrown out even with my seatbelt on. I had four broken ribs, three brain bleeds, two cracked vertebrae, a cracked tailbone, and a ruptured spleen. Later, while mowing Mama's yard with a push mower, I found out I also had a broken leg. I should've died that night, and I kinda feel like I did.

About three days after I got kicked out of the ICU, I was healing at my Mama's house, broken just about everywhere and feeling sorry for myself. She walked into the room and said, "Well, are you just going to lay there and die, or are you going to get up and do something?" Those words sounded harsh, but they came from a caring God. Mama had prayed for me through all those godless years, and her prayers were answered when she found those words to say to me. They were the exact words I'd been saying to myself and ignoring for so long. God picked a messenger that day that I couldn't ignore. I got up, and those words have stayed with me ever since. I knew I didn't want to be an addict anymore. I was tired of the cycle of losing everything I'd built whenever my casual addiction went too far.

God's timing is perfect, even when we can't understand it, because His plan is the most complex puzzle imaginable. He watched over me all that time, watching me get weaker and then stronger, waiting for the day He knew I'd surrender.

I didn't stop being a drug addict that day, but it was my first step toward becoming a man of God. I found my faith a month later, crying on my Mama's shoulder in her kitchen. I shed my addiction four years later, after the birth of our son. The day my Mama said those words to me was July 2, 2016. On July 2, 2021, my daughter was born. Now, 10 years later, my wife and I have a family that's far from perfect but rich in love. Blessings are everywhere, but you have to do what you're told to receive them. GET UP!

That's where The Struggle comes from. Every shirt carries a message, a piece of Scripture made for people who've been chained, broken, and patched back together and are still walking. Dying is OK. Giving up isn't.

Why ESV?

I thought about putting the King James on every message, and a few of these shirts still quote it. But a lot of the folks I'm trying to reach find the old English hard to follow, and if they can't understand the verse, it can't do its work. So most of our messages use the English Standard Version. Its wording is clear and modern and stays close to the original text. Jesus met people where they were, and I'm trying to do the same. Same God, same truth, just in words that land.