Yesterday as I drove through the dark night of the South Carolina back roads, tired, and ready to be back to our hotel, it hit me. I can't wish away the journey if I'm thankful for the destination.
We were driving, and of course making a Buc-ee's stop, because Lucas and I came down to be with Kyle to celebrate the beginning of an incredible journey. Ten years ago today I pulled into the parking lot of a county social work office to meet my sons for the very first time. Some dads meet their kids through an ultrasound photo taped to the fridge.
Some meet them in a hospital room filled with family and cameras and celebration. I met mine outside a government building in a broken up parking lot with a caseworker ahead of them. They walked out holding hands.
Four years old.
Two years old.
And they didn’t know me. They didn’t know what the future looked like. They didn’t know if this would be temporary or permanent.
Honestly… neither did I. All we knew was that for now, they were coming with me.
What none of us knew that day was that “for now” would slowly turn into forever. In the ten years since that moment, life has changed in more ways than I can count. Those two little boys became part of a family that would grow by one more son. They got their own rooms. They found friends at school. They found the best grandma, cousins, and aunts and uncles in my extended family who loved them like they had always been there. And they found something else that became incredibly important to all of us — a bigger family in a church that wrapped their arms around us.
But the story wasn’t simple. Within a couple of years those boys experienced another kind of loss that no child should ever have to process. A court order permanently severed their legal connection to their birth parents. It was done for their safety and for their future, but that kind of loss still leaves marks. Permanency can still carry grief.
And then not long after that, the family they had just started to trust got ripped in half again when their foster dad… me… went through a divorce. Life kept changing. The boys kept growing.
And if I’m honest, they kept challenging this dad in ways I never expected. Trauma is real. It doesn’t disappear just because life improves. It shapes the way a brain processes the world. It shapes fears, reactions, trust, and expectations. These boys have carried that reality with them, and together we’ve had to learn how to navigate it.
But the changes didn’t stop there. After losing family after family in their early years, we experienced another loss that none of us saw coming. Because of the insecurity of someone I once trusted deeply, I was pushed out of the role where I had found so much meaning. I lost a best friend. And the boys and I lost the faith family that had become home.
For kids who had already experienced so much instability, that was another wound. But sometimes the story doesn’t end where you think it does.
We eventually found ourselves walking into a new church family. They didn’t know what they were getting when we showed up. They didn’t know the chaos that sometimes follows my family around. They didn’t know my leadership style, my scars, or the baggage we carried. But they opened their arms anyway. And something beautiful happened there.
We found home again.
We grew. We healed. We laughed again. And it was there that our family grew again. For the first time, they gained a true, sacrificing, selfless mom when my wife came into our lives, along with a new brother who became part of the story. But it was also in that place that their dad changed again. This time not because someone pushed me out. This time because I realized something that took me far too long to understand.
I realized I was more than the role I had carried for so many years. I realized my value wasn’t tied to keeping everything together or holding everything up. I realized that love doesn’t come from performing well — it comes from being known.
Instead of insecurity, these pastors and this church loved me in my brokenness. They loved our family in the middle of our mess. And they showed my boys something I desperately wanted them to see. They showed us what church can actually be. And life kept moving forward.
Our family found a true forever home in what our boys would describe as a mansion. No, it's not, but it still feels ridiculous.There are days when I walk through our neighborhood or sit in our backyard and think, “How in the world did we end up here?”
We live in a house that younger me would have assumed only other people lived in. The kind of place you drive past and think, “Those people must have life figured out.” But here we are. Four boys. A wife and mom who loves us fiercely.
A home filled with noise, laughter, frustration, healing, and grace. And those two boys who once walked out of that county building holding hands? They’ve grown. They’ve learned. They’ve gotten support. They’re healing. And ten years later I can say something with complete honesty.
I wouldn’t change any of it. Not one part.
I wouldn’t change becoming their dad. I wouldn’t change the terrifying pivot of becoming a single adoptive father. I wouldn’t change the career changes that forced me to rethink everything about my life. I wouldn’t change the losses, the rebuilding, the surprises, or the way our family grew.
None of it was what I expected. But I could never imagine my life without the good that started the day I met my boys. At four and two years old they changed my life forever. They became heroes of mine. They forced me to grow when I would have been content staying the same.
They exposed parts of my heart that still needed healing. They gave me a reason to fight when I normally would just give up. And the most incredible thing they gave me wasn’t something I earned.
It was a title. A title that has drawn out my purpose, grown me in ways I never expected, and challenged my theology far beyond anything I studied in school.
Dad.
Being their dad has taught me more about God than any degree ever could. It’s helped me understand what it means when God reveals Himself as our Father. It’s what allows me to see the person behind the brokenness. The hope beyond the disappointment. The beauty of restoration instead of the weight of failure.
Ten years ago those boys made me their dad. They made me better. They made my faith fuller. And my prayer for you is this: Wherever life finds you over the next ten years — through the pain, the surprises, the struggles, and even the disappointments — I hope you’ll one day be able to look back and see the growth that came from it.
Growth you would never wish away. And maybe even more importantly, growth in understanding just how lovable you are. Because love doesn’t exist only when life goes according to plan. Love exists because someone chooses you. Every day.
Ten years ago two boys chose to trust me enough to walk out of a building holding my hands. And today I realize that same invitation is extended to every one of us. We’re all walking out of places that once defined us. We’re all leaving behind pain, fear, or familiar brokenness. And there’s a Father standing there waiting to walk with us. A Father who loves us before we ever say a word.
A Father who walks through life with us even when we fall, fail, and feel like we’ve let Him down. Because the truth is this: We’re not the ones holding Him up. He’s the one holding us. Always. Strong arms.
Patient love. A Father who never lets go.
As you continue on your journey, whether you're at the beginning, in the midst of the worst, or experiencing the goodness of the end, because if it's not good He's not done, know this: you can't wish away the journey if you're thankful for the destination. And with His work of using all things for your good, the destination will be good and I'm looking forward to what we all can look back to and see as the journey that finally got us there.