Warfare in the Waiting: Spiritual Battles Behind the Scenes of ServiceJuggling Three Worlds: Work, Theater, and the Front Lines of Compassion
Even as the Great Recession’s aftershocks still rattled the economy, I threw myself into a triple life that kept despair at bay. Days were filled with carpentry and trim installation—hands dusty, tools humming—while evenings often meant theater rehearsals or performances. At the same time, our family had become deeply embedded in the homeless agency: my wife keeping the books with quiet precision, me swinging hammers and saws to bring the new facility to life, and both of us showing up for fundraisers, meal services, and late-night planning sessions.The busyness was a mercy. It drowned out the national headlines of foreclosures and job losses. But beneath the surface, something fiercer was unfolding—not in the headlines, but in my soul.
Psalms as Weapons: A Lifetime of Recitation Turns into Battle Cry
For years I had made the Psalms my daily companion—reading, memorizing, praying them aloud through every season of life. What began as comfort had slowly become training. The imprecatory psalms—the ones that curse evil, call down judgment on wickedness, plead for God to arise and scatter His enemies—were no longer abstract poetry. They had become vocabulary for spiritual combat.As opposition intensified—both external pressures and an almost tangible sense of resistance—I found myself speaking those ancient words with new urgency. For four intense months I waged what felt like open warfare through declaration. I would pace empty rooms at night or drive deserted back roads, voice rising, quoting Psalm after Psalm like artillery fire:“Arise, O Lord, in Your anger; lift Yourself up against the fury of my adversaries” (Psalm 7).
“Let God arise, let His enemies be scattered” (Psalm 68).
“Contend, O Lord, with those who contend with me” (Psalm 35).Each utterance carried weight. The words weren’t polite prayers anymore—they were battle cries, priestly decrees before the clash. And in those moments of raw desperation, I felt something shift. A heaviness would lift. An oppressive atmosphere would break. I sensed retreat—not metaphorically, but viscerally—as though an opposing spirit had been forced to withdraw.
The Pattern I Could No Longer Ignore: Breakthrough Always Follows the Fire
Looking back across decades, a pattern had emerged in our family story: the fiercest spiritual opposition almost always preceded the greatest movements forward. Relocations that seemed cursed at first. Ministries that nearly collapsed before they launched. Children who faced brutal opposition right before stepping into calling. The greater the breakthrough on the horizon, the fiercer the resistance beforehand.This season was no exception. I knew something big was coming—something God-sized—but I also knew the adversary would fight hardest at the threshold.
Victory in the Unseen While Success Bloomed in the Seen
While the spiritual battlefield raged in private, tangible progress accelerated in public. The homeless agency’s new facility took shape beautifully. I personally installed the trim package—crown molding, baseboards, window casings—turning cold spaces into places of dignity and warmth. Donors increased. Volunteers multiplied. Lives were being touched and changed every week.At the same time, my own heart was softening toward people I once would have kept at arm’s length: the chronically homeless, the grieving, the addicted, the forgotten. God was doing parallel renovations—one in abandoned buildings, one in human hearts, including mine and my family’s.
The Unseen War That Made Room for Greater Grace
Those four months of fervent, sometimes anguished declaration were exhausting. They were also defining. God was not merely allowing trial; He was using it to dislodge old strongholds, to teach me how to stand in authority, to prepare me (and us) for what lay ahead.The Psalms I had recited for comfort had become the sword I wielded in combat. And in the heat of that unseen war, I tasted something priceless: the assurance that when the smoke cleared, the victory had already been won—not by my strength, but by the God who hears the battle cry of His people and answers with power.Looking back, those months weren’t punishment. They were preparation. The spiritual opposition I faced was proof that something beautiful—and costly—was breaking through. And when it finally did, our family would be ready—not because we were strong, but because we had learned, in the furnace, how to stand and declare:“The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?” (Psalm 27:1).And we were no longer afraid.

From Footlights to Frontlines: A Divine Detour Through Crisis and CallingThe Unexpected Door: A Job Offer That Changed Everything
While we were still catching our breath from the theater years and the brutal economic fallout, providence slipped in through an unlikely crack. A woman from the retired CEO’s church approached my wife with an offer she couldn’t refuse: come be the bookkeeper for the brand-new homeless shelter he had founded. It wasn’t just a paycheck—it was an invitation into mission. Almost immediately, the organization realized they also needed a skilled carpenter to handle the endless repairs on their aging facility. That carpenter? Me.In a single conversation, our family shifted gears. We moved from leading homeschool improv troupes and slinging snacks at intermissions to rolling up our sleeves in the gritty, grace-filled work of fighting homelessness. Fundraising dinners, volunteer coordination, facility maintenance—we poured ourselves into it all. What began as survival after the 2008 crash was quietly becoming purpose.
The Fall That Should Have Ended Me
The old building we inherited was a wreck—rotting floors, sagging beams, decades of neglect. One afternoon, I climbed to the second story to start dismantling the upper level. The plywood beneath my boots was soft, spongy, treacherous. I reached for the next truss, rope in hand, when the floor simply quit.Twenty feet above jagged concrete and a graveyard of fallen trusses, I plunged headfirst. Time slowed. I remember the sickening crack of wood giving way, the rush of air, the certainty that this was it.But the floor didn’t hold just long enough to kill me—it broke just enough to save me. Instead of smashing onto unforgiving concrete, I crashed sideways onto a large section of the plywood that had torn free with me. It acted like a makeshift sled, cushioning the impact. I landed hard on my side, wind knocked out, body screaming—but no shattered bones, no internal bleeding, no trip to the ICU.Within a week I was back on the job site, bruised but breathing. Word spread fast through the shelter community. Volunteers, staff, even some of the residents who’d heard the story stared in quiet wonder. “How are you still standing?” they asked. I had no clever answer—only gratitude. That fall became our family’s private miracle, a story we still tell in hushed tones.
From Volunteer to Visionary: Leading the Next Chapter
The CEO, ever the connector, built a bridge to city hall. Officials, impressed by the organization’s momentum, offered an abandoned municipal building—larger, structurally sounder, but still a gut job. They needed someone to spearhead the redevelopment. Eyes turned to me.I said yes.What followed was months of demolition, framing, plumbing, electrical—every trade I’d ever touched, now poured into turning a forgotten eyesore into a beacon of hope. The work was exhausting, exhilarating, sacred. Every nail driven felt like prayer made visible.
The Deeper Work: God Stripping Away, Then Filling Up
Through it all, something far more profound was happening inside me. The losses of the previous decade—the business collapse, the income drop, the dreams deferred—had already cracked open my self-reliance. Now the trials intensified, each one stripping away another layer of what I thought defined me: my skills, my plans, my ability to “fix” everything.In the quiet moments—driving home covered in sawdust, praying over blueprints late at night—I found myself crying out to God with a rawness I’d never known. Not for rescue from hardship, but for Him. The achievements I’d once chased began to feel like dust. What I wanted—what I began to crave—was simply His goodness, His presence, His nearness.God was doing what only He can: refining desire itself. He let me lose everything I’d built so I could discover what could never be taken—Him. The shelter, the building project, even that terrifying fall became instruments in a greater renovation: not of brick and beam, but of heart.Looking back, those years weren’t random detours. They were divine redirection. From community theater stages to homeless shelter scaffolds, from spotlight applause to concrete miracles, God was leading us—sometimes gently, sometimes through free-fall—straight into the center of His redemptive story.And we’re still here, still working, still marveling at how far grace can carry a family that once thought it had lost everything.

The Spotlight Years: When the Stage Became Our Life Raft in a Perfect Storm
Picture this: four whirlwind years when our family didn’t just attend theater—we lived inside it. What began as a desperate escape from heartbreak and rejection blossomed into the most electric chapter of our lives, a dazzling collision of footlights, family laughter, and the raw chaos of a world flipping upside down. While we slinged hot dogs and soda at the concession stand, history was rewriting itself right outside the theater doors.
Spotlight on Transformation: Theater as Sanctuary and Stage
We plunged headfirst into community theater because our son had discovered his superpower: improv. My wife stepped up as the troupe’s fearless instructor, and suddenly our weekends revolved around sold-out nights where his lightning-fast wit and magnetic stage presence had audiences roaring. Most of the cast? Homeschooled kids just like him—kids who once hid behind books now owned the stage, forging friendships, confidence, and memories that no classroom could match.I sat in the dark for nearly fifty shows, my son lighting up the boards in thirty of them. His star turn in Holy Cannoli still cracks me up every time I think about it—a riotous, heartfelt comedy that let his comedic genius explode. But the performance that stopped my heart cold? Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. I’ve seen every play the Bard ever wrote performed live, yet nothing compares to the way those young actors captured the dizzying, heart-shattering intensity of first love—the breathless highs, the gut-wrenching lows, the reckless fire that only teenagers can burn with. That night, the entire theater seemed to hold its breath. Theater didn’t just entertain us; it reminded us we were still alive.
The Quiet Revolution: Smartphones and the Death of Eye Contact
While we wiped counters and listened to rehearsals, something quieter but just as seismic was happening in the lobby. Around 2007–2010, smartphones exploded into everyday life. The iPhone had just dropped, Android was rising, and suddenly every pocket glowed like a tiny portal to another world. Intermission chatter faded. Heads bowed. Fingers scrolled. What used to be a shared, buzzing community experience began fracturing into a thousand private digital bubbles. The invisible fourth wall between stage and audience stayed rock-solid, but the one between people? It started crumbling overnight. We watched it happen in real time—right there under the marquee lights.
Crash Landing: The Day the Housing Market Became a House of Cards
Then the sky fell.My trim-installation business had been humming along beautifully—finish one subdivision, move to the next, steady work, steady paycheck. I was literally days away from breaking ground on a huge new development when the 2008 financial crisis hit like a freight train. The housing bubble, bloated by reckless subprime loans and get-rich-quick flipping, burst with apocalyptic force. Builders who’d been selling land for more than the cost of the homes on it suddenly owned worthless dirt. Foreclosures skyrocketed, the stock market plunged, credit froze, and the Great Recession swallowed everything.Overnight, my pipeline of work evaporated. I went from skilled craftsman to retail floor worker earning a fraction of my old wage. My wife and I scrambled to keep our homeschool rhythm alive while juggling brutal new schedules and the crushing weight of financial fear. Those theater nights—once pure joy—became our lifeline. The stage didn’t pay the bills, but it kept our spirits solvent.
A Glimmer of Hope: One CEO, One Homeless Man, One Bold Idea
Even in the wreckage, beauty broke through. A retired CEO pulled into a gas station one ordinary day and met a homeless man begging near the pumps. That single conversation shattered him. When he learned our city had almost no shelters, he didn’t just write a check—he poured every ounce of his corporate expertise into building a brand-new organization dedicated to ending homelessness. One random act of kindness became a movement. It was the same spirit we felt every time the curtain rose: ordinary people choosing to create light in the darkness.
Final Act: Stories That Saved Us
Looking back, those four years weren’t a hobby. They were our survival story. While the world outside fractured under economic collapse and digital isolation, the theater gave us community, creativity, and courage. It taught us that no matter how dark the stage lights dim, a single well-told story—whether on the boards or in real life—still has the power to heal, connect, and transform. And we’re forever grateful we got to live it.