This was my view from the hot tub. A dome of glass, blue sky behind it, clouds drifting slow like they had nowhere else to be. My son was somewhere on the ship running around with kids he didn’t even know three days ago, but already called “friends.” Only kids do that. Adults think too much. We calculate. We compare. We wonder if we fit. They just jump in.
Meanwhile I’m sitting there doing what humans do now—scrolling social media trying to figure out what “niche” I fit in. Someone I follow and am impressed with their growing empire was posting tips about growing your platform. His point number one was “Know your niche.”
Okay, well, that’s where I get stuck. Because my journey isn’t linear. It’s a tangled map. I have feet in the Christian world, the pastoral world, the broken-people-who-want-healing world. I’m in real estate. I’m in childcare because I fell in love with what my wife built and saw how much it matters. I’m in home renovation. I’m in travel communities. I’m in entrepreneurial circles, dads’ groups, recovery circles, leadership threads.
So what’s my niche?
The answer is: I don’t have one.
Or at least not one you can put on a podcast graphic.
But sitting there with my chest calm—really calm, like a voice inside said, yes, it’s okay here—I realized something. Maybe the market I’m trying to reach isn’t an industry. Maybe it’s not followers. Maybe it’s just people.
Later that night I sat across a table from a first time dad of a newborn I’d just met. He asked if he could share his heart. Of course. You don’t say no when someone wants to put their insides on the table. He started talking about his daughter and his wife and the weight of all that responsibility. He was overwhelmed and afraid he wasn’t enough. And I didn’t have answers. I’m not the answer guy. I’ve learned that the answers we give from the outside rarely fit someone else’s inside.
So I told him some of my story. He tried to say my story was harder, but that’s not how this works. My roads are mine, his roads are his. Difficulty doesn’t have a ranking scale. Pain is pain. Fear is fear. We all bleed red.
I told him the thing I keep telling myself:
This isn’t your last chapter. There’s always another page.
For some reason—I usually avoid religious talk because it shuts down real connection—I told him that I used to be a pastor. Before I could even explain why I said it, he said, “I was actually going to ask you if that’s what you did.”
That surprised me. It also opened the door.I told him why I brought it up. How I spent years of my life feeling like I owed God—like I had an IOU tucked somewhere under heaven’s ledger. I felt like God tolerated me as long as I was producing something good. If I prayed enough, preached enough, helped enough, obeyed enough… maybe I’d break even.
Then life hit me in ways I didn’t see coming. Being a dad stripped away the illusion that I could earn love. I had a son struggling so deeply that he was punching holes in my walls, scaring his brothers, and breaking my heart in ways I didn’t have categories for. I didn’t know how to give him what his wounds and brain needed. And I hated that reality. I hated that I couldn’t father him into safety with sheer willpower.
We had taken him to a school that could give him structure we couldn’t provide at home. I told him he’d be coming back the next year. That was the plan. That was my hope. The house is supposed to be where healing happens. The room down the hall is supposed to be where we put the pieces back together.But love doesn’t always look like what a Hallmark card told you it would.
I realized if I truly loved him, I’d make the hard choice. I’d do another year of drop-offs where I drive home with a cracked heart and a smile that fooled no one. I’d put his healing above my desire to “fix it with love” at home. And that broke something open in me. In a strange way, it also healed something.
Because in that same moment, I realized something about God. He doesn’t need anything from me.
Not one damn thing.
He’s not sitting there waiting for me to make Him proud or make Him look good. He’s not collecting glory points like tokens. He’s not a cosmic narcissist who created kids to reflect His greatness back to Him.He wants me. He chooses me. Not for His benefit—mine.
Everything I do “for Him” is really just living life more fully—with Him. It’s me getting to be part of something bigger, not paying off a debt from something smaller.
That’s when it clicked: Love’s pain isn’t punishment. It’s presence.
I get heartbroken over my son not because he disobeys, but because his choices hurt him and the people around him that I love too. It’s never about my pride—it’s about his wholeness.
And in that evening conversation with that young dad, after I finished sharing, he looked at me and said something so simple it almost whispered past the moment:“I never thought about it like that. I think I’m going to think in a new way about that.”
That was it. That was the whole thing.My niche showed up in a whisper at a table on the pool deck with strangers on vacation.
My niche is not theology. It’s not real estate. It’s not childcare or home renovation or travel hacks.
My niche is people standing at the edge of their story, trying to figure out if the next page is blank or written in permanent ink.
My niche is “think new.”
I’m writing this now because I don’t want to forget it. I want to remember the exact moment the A-ha landed—not in my head, but in my chest. I want to remember the peace of realizing that my purpose isn’t to give people answers for journeys I’ve never walked. My purpose is to sit with them long enough for them to find the courage to write another page.
Because the truth is—maybe the issues in front of you won’t get solved tomorrow. Maybe the healing takes longer than you prayed for. Maybe the financial struggle doesn’t resolve when you hoped. Maybe the relationship breaks again. Maybe you run from God again and aren’t sure how to get back. Maybe.
But answers aren’t what fix that.
Curiosity does. Courage does. A new way of seeing.
I read a post recently that bugged me. It said, “God doesn’t exist to make us happy, we exist to bring Him glory.” I read that and something in me recoiled. Not because I don’t get the theology they’re going for—but because as a dad, I hear that and it sounds like terrible parenting.
I don’t love my kids so they can bring me glory. That’s the dumbest thing I’ve heard.
I love my kids because they’re my kids.
Chosen and loved. On purpose.
So no, God doesn’t exist to make us happy. And no, you don’t exist just to make God look good. You exist because you are wanted. You exist because love creates.That’s why I’m writing this.
Not to give you answers. But to invite you to think new about every struggle you’re carrying right now.Ask better questions. Stay curious. Keep growing. Keep wondering if there’s a way to see your situation with more hope and more truth than the old story that’s been holding you hostage.
If there’s a market for that, maybe I get to be in it with you.
#NotTheLastChapter#ThinkNew#AnotherPage