What do you do when it feels like God is waking you from your sleep to talk? Some mornings, I will have to admit, I will lay there and maybe go back to sleep. This morning, that was impossible, so here I am.

It has been 5 years since I have shared anything in this way. I have written off and on, but did not feel like anything was ready to be shared. This morning felt different. I have always felt it was important to be open and vulnerable about things of consequence in my life. 10 years ago, when I really began to walk with Jesus, the Holy Spirit was doing a real work and I couldn’t help but share what was going on. There was post after post, which helped me to process my own thoughts as I was growing my journey. In recent years that has been different. I have written some, but it never felt like it was the time to share those things. It became, what my friend Morgan calls, the hidden years, to some degree.

Now what do you do when it feels like everything in your life has been under assault? This is a part of processing that journey.

Where to even begin. Life comes in waves as we all know. There are good times and bad times. The early years of my faith journey, as I look back were certainly some good times. These last couple of years, however, have turned into some very turbulent times, not just for me, but for my family as whole. Trying to make sense of it all, and maintain faith and hope has come with so much struggle.

This week, we will mark the 1 year anniversary of the death of my son, Brandon. We lost him on February 27, 2024. He was just 24 years-old when he passed. He had significant health challenges over the last 11 years of his life with Type-1 diabetes and in his last 5 years, the addition of what’s called Addison’s Disease. Over the last months of his life, it was taking a significant toll on him with multiple trips to the hospital. Then on the day he passed, he went into sudden cardiac arrest at his apartment that he and our other son, Shawn, shared. Despite all efforts, he could not be revived.

We all remember the day like it was just yesterday. Brandon stayed home from work that day, because wasn’t feeling great. Thought he just needed to rest it off. By the time Shawn came home, he had a hard time getting to of bed. Amber and I had both spoken to him by phone that day and he assured us that he was feeling better as the day progressed. Shawn went to call 911, because it was clear Brandon needed some medical attention. He helped Brandon get up and then he just collapsed and he stopped breathing. I cannot even begin to imagine what that was like for Shawn as he tried CPR and waited for paramedics to arrive.

Amber and I were both working. I have been working as a delivery driver for a few months at the time to make a stable income for bit. I remember the house I was delivering at when Amber called to frantically tell me that Brandon had stopped breathing. She closed her store immediately and headed to the hospital while I frantically headed back to our station a half hour away to return my work van and head to the hospital. Those moments felt like an eternity. It took her an hour and me an hour and a half to get to the hospital where Shawn had been waiting by himself with no news. Brandon’s fiancée, Courtney, arrived as well with her sister and we waited. More family began to arrive, Amber’s dad Dennis, my brothers and sister, our pastors wife, Barb, with more to follow. Then the doctors asked for just immediate family, first, so Amber, Shawn, Courtney, and I waited together.  Our daughter, Ashley, was on her way from North Carolina where she lives.  Then they told us the news. His heart had gone into a fatal rhythm and despite everything they tried, they could not get him back. The shock was instantaneous as I looked at Amber’s face, Shawn’s, and Courtney’s. Nothing could prepare you for that moment.

They brought us back to the room where Brandon was and let us go in. That’s an image that I will never forget. To see him laying there with no life in him. Amber and Courtney came to each side as the emotions came through. I just remember saying, “My boy…my boy.” I remember hugging Shawn and then left them after a little bit to tell everyone else that was waiting. That was one of the longest nights. My pastor and friend, Tim arrived and I collapsed in his arms. More friends arrived and I am so thankful as they were just there to love on us. Ashley arrived and took her straight into the consultation room with Shawn. We sat down on the floor and I told her the news she didn’t want to hear, but was afraid would be true. I remember seeing the tears in her eyes and she just saying, “He is still good. He is still good.”

This was and still is a very hard thing to contend with. Brandon was a young man that loved life and was always filled with so much joy. He had a strong belief and love for Jesus and you could see it in him. His celebration of life was a testament to him, as hundreds packed our church. On his 25^th birthday, this past October, our family was afforded an incredible honor, as our church renamed our student center building in his honor, The Brandon Clinton Student Center. It was a place where he flourished in his faith growth.

His loss, for us, however, has left a significant hole. For Amber and me, our other kids, Shawn and Ashley, and Courtney, among other family and friends. How do you process and recover from all of this? I have shared in public and private that our faith has been a big part of this and that still hold true. At the same time, this has been the most horrific and trying experience we have had to walk through. As Amber and I sat together in our bedroom last night talking, she commented, that it’s like we’re still waiting to wake up from this nightmare. Even a year later, it is so hard to believe that this has become our reality. The loss of a son, brother, grandson, fiancée, and friend.

It has been a traumatic time. A little over 2 years ago, I had front row seat to watch my wife go through the fight of her life, and only through a miracle survive. Just 3 months after we lost Brandon, the same thing happened all over again, as Amber crashed and nearly died in the summer of 2024, and spent 6 weeks in the hospital, miraculously surviving again.

What I’m sharing here will be from own perspective. We all process in different ways, this is mine.

As a man, husband, and father, I have always tried to keep things together and be strong for my family. For much of the last 8 years, I have worked taught men about the significance of walking in their true identity and leading and loving their families and well. It was a calling that, just a month before Brandon’s death I shared to a group of guys, is the thing that I cannot help but do. It is wild, how such significant events can really get you to look at things in a different light.

How do you move forward, when it seems everything you hold dear is under assault? I’m not one who cries much, but I remember the morning after we lost Brandon, waking up and sitting on the side of my bed and beginning to wail like I don’t think I ever had before. As a man, I still feel that there is a need to be strong for my family, but in all honesty, I have never felt weaker in my life. It is a feeling like I have nothing to offer and bring to the dance. Maybe there’s a strength in that. As Paul wrote, he boasted in his weakness. It’s where the strength of Christ can come through. I certainly believe that to be true, and maybe one day I will be able to look back and see that with more clarity. Right now, in the middle of it, it certainly is challenging to see that way, at times.

What is wild, is that this feeling of weakness is not just from the trauma of the loss of my son and near loss of my wife. Those events, themselves, are enough to take anyone out. It has felt like a compounding effect from those events, to job loss and career uncertainty, to the financial strain of major car issues, medical debt, and other things. I know the car thing seems minor, but when it surrounds and is in the middle of these events, it is very visible and weighty. You get that feeling of, what next?

So here I am. It is early 2025 and I continue to try to make sense of everything that has happened. I don’t know where life is going from here. We have a void in our lives that can’t be filled by anything on this side of eternity. I also live with a worry of seeing my wife go through another medical crisis. I try not to stay there, but when you have seen it twice in less than 2 years, it is hard to not be front of mind.

I don’t know why I’ve shared all of this, other than just to be real about where I am. In the day-to-day, I am okay for the most part, but when the weight come back or memories surface, then I am not as okay. I think, as a family, that’s how we are most days.

I wrestle with what is God up to next. This struggle and suffering can’t be for nothing. I have learned the importance of not wasting your pain, so where is all of this leading? I shared in a video last year that it would be nice if God would just open a book for me and share that this is what he is doing with this, but I know it does not work that way. There are just some things that will remain a mystery and when it is time to be revealed, it will be. Until then, all I can do is sit with eager anticipation and expectation of God’s goodness. I know He is still up to good in all of this.

I’m part of a group of men that is going through my friend Michael Thompson’s book, King Me, together. We gather on Zoom every Thursday morning with men from the around the country. It has been a helpful exercise to regain some sense of focus, even when filled with so many questions. This past week, one of the questions posed in the book was, “Do we really want to become the sons of God?” In other words, do we really want this life with Jesus? Some give a half-hearted ‘yes,’ others a resounding ‘yes.’ The thing that flashed in my mind as I read that was, “Count the cost.” If we are saying yes, do we really know the cost of what that yes can mean? Are we ready to participate in the sufferings of Christ? How often do we really think about what real suffering can look like, until we go through it. We’re not the first and we won’t be the last, so we have to, as believers, be willing to really go there and process this question. How will we respond? We have a choice.

On Brandon’s birthday, when we did the student center dedication, I was given the honor to speak to our church and share some of this journey. I referenced the verse John 16:33. It is a verse that has been front of mind to me for many years. Jesus says here, “I have told you this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.” This verse stuck out because while I was early in my faith journey, I often wondered how I would respond when things got really hard. What would those trials look like and how would my faith endure? These are important questions to ask, whether you are in it or this is frontier to you.

For me, there are days where it feel like, “Okay, I’ve got this. Jesus is in it, we will be okay.” Other days, I feel like I want to just yell at the top of my lungs in anger and frustration. How much can one man take? Remember I’m just writing from my own perspective here.

As Amber was fighting for her life for the second time, I remember sharing with some close friends that my heart is really heavy. I honestly did not know if I would be able to endure this again, let alone still grieve my son. If would have lost Amber, then, I would like to say I would be able to lean into my faith, but I don’t know if I could have handled that. There was a point where worry began to fill the doctors faces when she had been on life support for over a week and was still not showing signs of improvement. I sat in the chapel at the hospital in tears and scared to death of this being a strong possibility. But God showed up as little by little she began to show some improvements. Over the coming weeks she recovered and I was able to bring her home and she is doing well again.

This season of life has carried more weight than I ever imagined facing, especially in such short period of time. You’re never prepared to lose a child and to face everything else we have faced, it is honestly amazing we are still going. It’s all God and I don’t say that lightly. There’s reason for it all and He’s not done with me or us. I’ll share more as I feel prompted, but in the meantime, we’ll keep going.