Inspiring creativity for the glory of God.

I grew up in Garden Grove, California, a homeschooled pastor’s kid whose life revolved around church, missions, and making things. I took my first trip outside the United States at nine, stopping in Hong Kong on the way to serve in Nepal. At home I built with Legos, asked too many questions, and once went door to door selling my family’s pens so I could buy a new Lego set.

By eleven, I had turned a corner of our garage into a reptile business called Geckos for God and used the money to help fund mission trips. My parents put me behind a drum kit at eight. I hated lessons at first, but they made me stick with it. By junior high, music had become my daily discipline, my creative outlet, and the beginning of the work I do today.

I grew up knowing about Jesus, but by sixth grade I had begun a private struggle with pornography. As a pastor’s kid, I became skilled at protecting an image and hiding what was real. Lust, pride, guilt, and shame followed me for years, even while I looked like the person everyone expected me to be.

At seventeen, a phone call from my dad exposed the life I had kept hidden. That night, at a youth retreat, I cried out to God and chose Jesus above my reputation, my will, and everything I was afraid to lose. I came home determined to be real, raw, honest, and open. My friendships, church community, and way of living changed, and the conviction that faith must be honest has shaped everything I have built since.

Not long after that, a friend invited me to a Bible study and mentioned there was a girl there I might like. Lauren was leading worship. Her voice caught my attention, but her honesty and the way she cared for people changed my life. We became friends, then best friends, and married at eighteen and nineteen. We were not ready, but we were willing to grow up together.

Early in our marriage, my addiction returned and nearly destroyed the trust between us. The next two years were a slow, painful rebuilding. Lauren knows the deepest parts of me and loves me, and it is the joy of my life to know and love her in the same way. Hard seasons can drive a couple apart or draw them together. By God’s mercy, our story has been the latter.

Once our marriage had found solid ground, Lauren told me it no longer felt like something was missing from our lives. It felt like someone was. God answered with our son, Dougie. At 25 weeks, one ultrasound introduced us to porencephaly, a rare brain condition caused by a genetic mutation I later learned I carry. Dougie was born with half of his brain, and every picture we had of parenthood changed overnight.

We learned hospitals, medicine, grief, and the strange courage of becoming parents to a child with special needs. Out of that season came our family motto: Pivot or Die. Now Dougie and our daughter, Peace, keep teaching me that suffering can hold purpose even when we cannot see it yet. We are still in the middle of the story and still pivoting, but the anchor holds. Christ remains our solid foundation.