Every story has a beginning…

One of my favorite creatures of all time is the Monarch Butterfly. Not for any of the reasons you would expect, though. Sure, they have some amazing features; the beautiful color palate, their graceful flights. Yet, while I find these traits intriguing, I don’t find them inspiring.

To fully explain why I love these majestic little creatures, however, I need to go back, and tell you a story.

Once upon a time, there was a boy with a story to tell…

My story goes back to July of 2022. My Summer had been amazing. My life was full of purpose, passion, and direction. I was doing well in school, was loved by an amazing family, and had the best girlfriend a guy could ask for. I was on track to serve the Lord in ministry. Everything was perfect.

Sometime later in the month, my younger brother and I had rented a U-Haul, and were driving a couple of hours from where we lived to pick up some furniture from a relative. The drive was pretty long, so we had a pretty good conversation both ways.

As we drove, at some point my brother started napping, and I was left to my thoughts. A crazy idea came to me: a story. A story I could write, and make into a book, and sell to the world.

When he woke up I shared my thoughts with him. Of course, it was a crazy idea. I had (full disclosure; still have) a lot of those. He seemed to like it, but I still wasn’t sure.

Later that day, I pitched the idea to my girlfriend. Being an artist herself, I knew that she would be more honest. To my surprise, she seconded my brother’s thoughts. She told me I should seriously consider it. That day, a seed was planted.

Unfortunately, like most stories, what was perfect didn’t stay that way for long. As the Summer stretched on, division began to wrap its dark clutches around my family. A few months back into school, life dealt me its first gut-punch: my parents were getting divorced. Any dreams I might have had at that point were put on the back burner.

After that, things continued to spiral downwards my grades plummeted, I sunk into depression, and eventually my girlfriend, the last person I knew who really believed in me, left.

Within a few months, I went from the top of the world to the bottom. I was crushed, and I was defeated. I had no more purpose, no more direction. I wanted to give up, and stop trying, and stop hoping that anything could or would ever get better.

I questioned the Lord. I knew I hadn’t been perfect, but I didn’t think I deserved this. My faith was weak, and my resolve shaken. Nevertheless, I was determined to, as Job said, take good as well as evil from the Lord. I prayed desperately, but wasn’t sure anything could be done.

But just then, in the midst of the deepest darkness I’d ever known came a spark.

A spark of inspiration.

I took to writing to try to fill some of the holes left in my heart. As I wrote, I imagined a character, a man just like me. A man who had been subject to the greatest of darknesses, but swore to follow the light no matter what.

The more I wrote, the more the man - and his world - evolved. It went from a few short stories to a chapter, then to a book, and then into ideas for an entire series. And just as it was for my character, for me, the dark began to turn back.

My dad and I were able to connect in a way we never had before in my life, and if it wasn’t for him, nothing, nothing I do ever would have been done. We talked every day, and encouraged each other to press on.

My siblings were there for me in so many ways. One of my younger brothers, in particular, would listen to all of my stories. His interest in what I had written made me believe that others would want to read what I wrote.

So write I did. I wrote everything, from fictitious interviews with people from history to short stories. I wrote, and never stopped writing. More and more, the darkness turned back.

One day, as I was writing, the question came to me: “Can you make a living off of writing?” I’d never really thought of that before. So I began to research freelancing, authorship, and blogging.

I’ve always wanted to do something great for the Lord, but didn’t always know what that would be. Now, here before me lay something I could do - something that I loved.

I decided then and there that I would not stop until I was able to bring uplifting, encouraging, and inspirational stories to the whole world.

The rest, as they say, is history.

Butterflies are beautiful, but that beauty doesn’t happen overnight. It takes much time and effort. In fact, the struggle for beauty can be deadly.

When a butterfly first emerges from its cocoon, a life-and-death struggle ensues. The insect, trapped and smashed inside of its prison-like cocoon must escape, or run the risk of suffocation. The fight is by no means easy: it takes every ounce of strength the butterfly has to break free.

To the uneducated onlooker, it may seem that the insect is in need of aid; and surely, nothing could be easier that to widen the aperture from which it emerges, thus relieving the poor thing of its struggle.

Right?

To be aided, though, would be more perilous to the butterfly than any struggle. You see, as the monarch begins its struggle to escape the cocoon, a sluggish fluid begins to be pumped throughout its body. This fluid is very heavy, and requires that the heart of the insect be beating furiously. Once the struggle is over, and the butterfly is at rest, the fluid, now settled in the wings, begins to harden, giving the wings the required stiffness for flight.

Without this struggle, the butterfly is doomed to a terrible demise as its body slowly solidifies. The butterfly cannot become strong without the struggle.

People are no different. Within every person lies the potential to do something really amazing; something world changing, even. I believe that with all my heart.

And yet, without that struggle, many will never acheive what they could have, resigned to a fate of slowly fading away.

In my darkest moment, I thought that this was my fate, that I was doomed to scrape along until the end. But I caught a spark of inspiration that changed everything.

My passion? To create the best stories the world has ever seen, all flowing from that single spark of inspiration.

My goal? To help others find that spark too, and watch as their life becomes something amazing. Something uplifting.

Something inspiring.