For a long time, I told myself I would write this book SOMEDAY. I told myself I needed more time. More clarity. More courage. More proof that it mattered. What I didn’t realize until yesterday was that sometimes what we’re really waiting for… is people.

Not because we need permission. But because the right kind of support can feel like fuel - not a pat on the back, but wind at your back.

Yesterday, I launched a campaign to raise $7,500 by September 1 to help me complete, edit, design, and publish my first book: "Demons Too Big to Hide: Living Life Under the Influence of Trauma".

By the end of yesterday - the first day of the campaign - 19 people had helped me raise nearly 20% of that goal. Additionally, and contributing just as much to the wind at my back, were all of the encouraging words of support, a giant squad of cheerleaders.

The money raised isn't just about dollars. It’s about the undeniable jolt we feel when we feel truly seen. When we feel like we have a story that matters. It’s about people saying, “We believe in this. And we believe in you.”

If you’ve ever tried to do something bold, something long put off or deeply personal, then you know how fragile confidence can be.
You know how easy it is to put your dream on a shelf, to shrink from your calling, to convince yourself that now isn’t the time.

But when people show up, even just a few - something shifts. The fog lifts. Your doubts fade. The momentum begins.

Momentum - that's it - that’s the gift I received yesterday.

To everyone who contributed, shared, or simply whispered a prayer: thank you. You didn’t just support a project, you activated a voice.
You gave permission to a project I'd kept quietly inside me for years to step into the light.

I’m still raising funds, and there’s a long road ahead to reach the $7,500 goal. But what I know this morning - with more clarity than I’ve ever known it - is that this is happening. Not because I decided it would - (although that certainly matters) - but because so many of you showed up.

If there’s something you’ve been putting off, something that matters but feels too big or too risky, I want to offer this hope:
Sometimes the confidence you’re waiting for doesn’t come from inside you. Sometimes it shows up in the faces, words, and actions of the people around you.

So if someone’s dream stirs something in you — let them know.
Your small act of belief might be the thing that helps them finally start.

Just like so many of you helped me.

You can support my campaign here:
https://www.rkcwrites.com/demons-too-big-to-hide.html

For five years now, I've been showing up here on Facebook with morning articles. Over 1,500 of them to be exact. Over that time, many of you have encouraged me to write a book. And, in response, I have not written a book.

Until now.

The hold up has not been the lack of desire to write a book. I love writing and sharing. Rather, the hold up has been that I've always known there is a book I HAVE to write before I will ever be able to write the books I WANT to write.

I have been waiting for the storm waters of my life to recede before moving on with my writing, while all the while knowing the storm waters were actually found in my refusal to write the book I've known I have to write.

The time has come for me to recede the storm waters. But I need your help. Emotionally and financially.

75% of the first draft of the book is written. My plan is to publish the book in January 2026.

The first chapter of the book opens with these word:

In 2016, I sat in a conference ballroom somewhere near Washington, D.C., listening to a presentation that would split my life into two parts: life before I knew and life after I could never again unknow.

The speaker was explaining a study from the 1990s, research that revealed something I’d never heard put into words before: the more toxic stress you endure as a child, the more likely you are to struggle later in life. Not just with anxiety or addiction, but with physical health: cancer, heart disease, strokes. Health challenges we rarely think of tracing back to childhood because childhood can often feel so very distant and disconnected from adulthood. Most certainly, as it relates to adulthood health.

How could the two possibly be connected?

But in that room, I learned that childhood doesn’t always stay in the past. Sometimes it echoes through your body for decades. Quietly. Invisibly. You’re on a journey carrying luggage you have no idea that you’re carrying. You grow up thinking certain things are just normal - or maybe not ideal, but survivable. What you don’t realize is that survival often comes at a big cost. And that cost is often buried in symptoms you don’t even know are symptoms.

This book will look at the story of trauma at the intersection of my story and science - both of which I've spent the last decade of my life exploring deeply.

My hope is that, yes, the storm waters in my life will recede with this book, but equally important, that maybe you too will find a new way to look at the storm waters of your life.

I'd be grateful if you visited my project page on my website linked below. I'd be most grateful if you'd support this project financially. The fundraising campaign will run through September 1, 2025. But if you can't, I will be thankful if you will continue to show up here, reading my writing, while providing encouragement and prayer as I take the next step in this journey.

A journey I hope will take me one step closer to receding the storm waters.

All of my friends in the trauma, resilience and healing-centered relationships world - I'd be grateful if you'd share this as well.

https://www.rkcwrites.com/demons-too-big-to-hide.html

*the photo below is not the official book cover (at least not officially) but it does capture what it feels like to many living under the influence of trauma.

​Destiny.

So close but yet so so far.

But why?

"I come to church to hear about my destiny. And my destiny sounds so wonderful. And he's good, and he's wonderful, and he's good all the time. And everything's wonderful in the name of the Lord. And coming to his house with thanksgiving is wonderful.
And they tell me about my destiny:

- I'm an overcomer.
- I've got the power of God in me.
- They tell me that my mouth can speak and things can change.
- They tell me about my destiny.

But when I leave the parking lot, I drive smack into my history. My history contaminates my destiny." ~T.D. Jakes

So often it's not our destiny that is out of reach, it's our histories standing in its way.

And this isn't just a church thing.

We long for the beauty of our destiny of marriage, but then our histories show up, our histories of having no idea how to share and process emotions, our histories of feeling like every small piece of criticism is a giant attack on our worth. And then we follow our historic pattern or avoidance and isolation.

Marriages often fail not because we weren't destined for marriage, but because we hadn't cleaned up the contamination of all we've been married to in the past.

So many young people struggling in school, not because they are destined to be uneducated, but because they show up to school with the contamination of all that makes it difficult for them to trust, to relate, to listen - to embrace peace when all they've known is chaos.

It's easy to accuse one of being unwilling to accept their destiny when the reality is they have been unable to fix the contamination of their past. I say to you with great experience, it is much easier to believe in your destiny than it is to heal and fix the contamination of the past blocking your entrance to it.

When your life strategy has long been hiding your contamination and not cleaning it up, living with contamination becomes much easier than leaning into a destiny completely incompatible with your contaminated history.

Easier that is, until you see your sweet destiny drifting so far into the future that it becomes unrecognizable.

Contaminated...

When you grow up believing the role of God is to decide whether your destiny is eternal heaven or eternal hell, it's very difficult to accept that God wants to walk with you to your destiny and not simply wait at the end of it, quite eager to decide whether or not you are worthy of going any further.

So many beautiful possibilities in our lives - God and otherwise - that our histories sit waiting to contaminate.

How do we fix that?

It starts by recognizing the smell of our contaminations. Their voices. Their motives.

It starts when we pull out of the parking lot, feeling beautiful about our destination, only to have the beauty rocked by some sudden disbelief in the reality of that beauty. And in that moment, somehow coming to recognize this is not an unbelievable destination but a contaminated past.

It starts with recognizing the patterns of those disbeliefs - those sudden shifts in direction - and breaking free from them. Breaking free from the people, places, things and memories that trigger those shifts.

For it is not our destinations we need to fear or doubt, but the histories of our pasts that contaminate them. The path to the future is quite often finding the path that walks away from the past.

​Yesterday, quite out of the blue, I received a message from a dear friend that said, "I thought you might like this." And then attached to her message was a Paulo Coelho quote that states:

"Not all storms come to disrupt your life, some come to clear your path."

Much more than liking her message, I needed it.

We hadn't spoken in a few weeks so she had no idea that life has indeed been stormy recently, so the timing of her message felt divinely orchestrated.

Then this morning I wake up and an article I wrote 4 years ago showed up in my memories. A portion of the article said this:

An exhausted mind wants you to stop - stop and find cover and find rest. An exhausted mind doesn't want to try any more doors, and the easiest way to skip trying more doors is convincing ourselves that no more doors exist.

How much of your life have you left behind because you missed going through doors you convinced yourself didn't exist?

How much more of yourself will you discover today if you convince yourself there is always one more door, at least one that you haven't tried to open yet?

When you believe there is one more you keep going.

The real exhaustion in life is believing there are no more doors. That's a belief fueled by giving up. Giving up is as close as one can get to dying while still breathing; there is little difference between death and giving up.

I read those words this morning from 4 years ago and have been reflecting on them. And these thoughts came to me: sometimes giving up can be greatly disguised by a lot self-talk convincing yourself you haven't. Sometimes you can convince yourself you're opening new doors when all you're really doing is going through old doors to nowhere while painting the doors a different color to convince yourself they are new.

Don't get me wrong. I know in the grand scheme of things I have not given up. And won't. But to a degree, when we don't explore doors that have been calling us, when we don't explore them for fear of leaving behind doors that have been comfortable, or for fear of walking through doors into a complete unknown, maybe that is not actually giving up, but I believe it's something very like it.

"Not all storms come to disrupt your life, some come to clear your path."

Storms can clear the path, but storms don't make us follow them. That's our job.

I am writing this today because when this article pops up four years from now, I don't want to be reflecting once again on doors I did not open, on cleared paths I did not walk. I don't want to reflect on the possibility that I've given up more than I think.

I want to reflect back on this storm and declare that what I went through wasn't really a storm at all.

It was a door.

​I recently listened to Dan Rather interview Billy Bob Thornton. Thornton described his father as abusive, but still expressed appreciation for him - not because the harm didn’t matter, but because he could see the values his father was trying to instill, even if he had no idea how to instill them.

I found it compelling that the weakness Thornton identified most in his dad's inability to transmit these values was his dad's inability to communicate.

It's true. When we don’t know how to communicate our values, we often resort to enforcing them. What could have been a conversation becomes control.

As a tangent I won't follow but don't want forgotten in my reflecting: are there broader implications here culturally? Have we become prone to looking for ways to enforce our values upon one another because we can't talk to one another about the values we hold within us?

But back to Thornton: I related a lot to his conversation with Rather.

I have personally wrestled with this most of my adult life. Trying to see through the destructive ways good values were transmitted into my life by good people who used a lot of bad ways to transmit them. And in most cases, because their lives were groomed by bad transmitters.

Should understanding and grace be strong enough to allow one to see through the bad to get to the good? Is it wrong that one appreciates in hindsight what one struggles to love in the here and now?

And me, even as I have gone out of my way not to transmit my own good values in bad ways, have my own ways been any better even if vastly different? Will I too have people in my life wrestling with the things with which I wrestle?

It does make me wonder, when I am questioning the value systems of people around me - because I do question - what is it actually that I am questioning?

Their values, or the systems in which they received them?

Because I have lived a life, and heard hundreds of stories of lives beyond mine, that often look like stronger reflections of the WAY values were instilled in them more than the nature of the values themselves.

I don't offer that as excuse - not for me and not for others - but I offer it as understanding.

Appreciation.

While acknowledging that appreciation doesn't often heal the wounds incurred at the hands of bad transmitters.

​In the book of John, we hear the story of Jesus asking a man who been an invalid for 38 years, "Do you want to get well?"

Seems like a ridiculous question, doesn't it? Hey, Jesus seems to suggest, I know you've been coming to this healing pool (at least mythically) every day for 38 years, begging for money to support your family, are you sure you want to have a different life?

It IS a ridiculous question until we realize that in the Roman culture at that time, it was not considered shameful for someone who had legitimate ailments to beg. In fact, many families relied on the daily income of beggars.

Additionally, the rest of society saw giving to the beggars as a spiritual way to stay on God's good side. So, beggars gave givers the opportunity to gain religious favor while at the same time receiving sustenance for themselves.

That's why when Jesus asked, "Do you want to get well?" he was actually asking the invalid if he was ready to give up the only role he'd ever known, give up his place in the only system that had given him a place and purpose and acceptance.

In the movie Goodwill Hunting there's a powerful scene between Will (Matt Damon) and Sean (Robin Williams).

Sean repeatedly tells Will, “It’s not your fault.”

At first, Will brushes it off: “Yeah, I know.”

Sean keeps repeating it: “It’s not your fault.”

Finally, Will breaks down - he couldn’t let go of the story that his pain defined him. He had grown so used to his trauma that the idea of living beyond it was terrifying.

I have been realizing a lot lately how much easier it is to want to heal than it is to actually heal.

Sometimes we cling to brokenness because it’s familiar, even functional. It gives us a story to tell, a reason to be seen, and a space where people understand why we’re limping. But healing? Healing demands a new story, and often, a new level of vulnerability.

In the story in John, Jesus isn’t condemning the man by asking if he wants to be well. He’s recognizing that healing means surrendering the identity he'd built in survival mode.

There are a lot of people around you who might look incredibly strong as they carry others through storms, but inside, they long for someone to carry them. They might be admired for their strength, while inwardly they long for rest. They often wear a badge of honor that says SURVIVAL, while longing to have one that says WHOLE.

People who are unwell frequently have stories much more complicated than someone unwilling to get well. Jesus recognized that in the man at the healing pool. His question to the man was filled with far more compassion than judgment.

Our wounds can easily become our identity, and letting go of them means facing a future we don’t know how to navigate.

Do you want to get well?

Sometimes the answer to that is much more complicated than one might think.

​The future is always an opportunity.

Until we decide it's not.

It's interesting. If I look upon my life today, so many of the opportunities I have this day are built on experiences and days that I would have considered threats in my life. Built on things that at the time made me fear the future - debate whether or not I even WANTED a future.

Many of you who have been reading me for some time don't need me to tell you that many days I am writing about the life I am trying to make of the broken parts of me, and not about a guy celebrating an unbroken journey through life.

What a gift it is to come to know - to believe - that even the things that make us fear or mistrust the future can be the blocks on which we build a future.

What a gift it is to come to know that time isn't waiting for me to decide what I will do with tomorrow before tomorrow comes barging into my life. In fact, tomorrow has barged into my life in spite of my objections enough times now that I can no longer consider tomorrow some kind of a surprise party.

Maybe some of us need to get better at surprising tomorrow. Surprise it by standing at the door waiting for it instead of hiding in a closet hoping it won't notice you're still around.

Hoping it will give up on the knocking and simply go away.

Tomorrow is here. And we can now make something of it.

It might be a scary day, a day filled with challenges, a day we had planned to look quite differently when we were planning for its arrival - but we CAN still make something of it.

Or not.... 

​Sometimes I can get to feeling like pain and struggle are the only things standing in between me and success. Between me and contentment. But what if what those things are really doing - pain and struggle - is standing between me and God's voice?

Sometimes pain and struggle feel much more challenging because they disconnect me from the voice that wants to help me make sense of them. The voice that wants to create something from them. I can get so caught up blaming God for allowing the things I feel are standing in my way that I never stop to ask God how these things can actually help me make some way.

It's as if all my life I've been in the midst of practicing struggle for the big day God wants to use my struggle - and today is that day - GAMEDAY - and I can't hear the coach's voice.

Practice helps us become prepared for our big moment, but it's a relationship that ultimately makes us most effective in that moment.

I think about our military. They train endlessly and tirelessly for crisis situations. But when that crisis situation comes, it is still necessary for them to lean into the voice of a commander who will help guide what they are about to do with all the preparation.

I also think about the story of Elijah. Elijah was waiting to hear from God, hear some guidance about what he was suppose to do with a great struggle. So he went to a mountain in order to hear from him.

The bible tells us:

"A hurricane wind ripped through the mountains and shattered the rocks before God, but God wasn’t to be found in the wind; after the wind an earthquake, but God wasn’t in the earthquake; and after the earthquake fire, but God wasn’t in the fire; and after the fire a gentle and quiet whisper. When Elijah heard the quiet voice, he muffled his face with his great cloak, went to the mouth of the cave, and stood there. A quiet voice asked...."

Too often I can be found trying to shout over the chaos of my struggles - or plow recklessly right through them, creating only more chaos on the way - with hopes that is the path to God's voice. The path to the coach's direction. But sometimes the key isn't to plow but to find the quiet whisper.

To CREATE the quite whisper....

Sometimes the coach doesn't want to yell above our chaos, sometimes the coach wants us to call a timeout, find a quite place to huddle with him, and simply listen.

It can get to feeling like we aren't prepared for gameday. I get that. Quite well. But often that's because we're talking to ourselves about our readiness - (and do we ever really feel prepared) - and not listening to the coach. We get too focused on our capabilities and not on a relationship.

God wants to guide me, but rarely is he going to barge through my chaos to do so.

Frequently God is going to patiently wait for me to create space for the whisper. And then, for me to listen to the coach's voice.

​Like many of you, I have watched the flood scenes out of Texas this weekend with an aching heart.

How can I not?

I read the story yesterday of a woman found clinging to branches in a tree 20 miles downstream from where the waters picked her up. Along the way, while being little more than debris herself, she collided with appliances, automobiles, trees and more.

One moment life is fine. Then, without notice, you are somewhere you never imagined you could be having no idea how you got there.

Or more sadly, swept away forever.

I have thought this weekend, mainly prompted by these horrific scenes and stories, how using flooding as a metaphor for emotions might be one of the most appropriate uses of metaphor there is. Of course, this is coming from a guy who has found himself swept up in some strong emotional currents lately that I didn't see coming.

And swept away to places I didn't imagine going.

I told a friend this morning that I understand how people's emotions land them in some ugly places. Maybe acting out on rage or hiding from the world out of deep depression. It is not easy for everyone to see the flood of emotions coming; it is often even harder for them to be much more than debris in the water once the flood of emotions has picked them up.

I said this not to excuse behaviors, but to offer them compassion. Understanding.

I wonder, how many interpersonal relationships are simply riding out floods of emotions?

How much of our online world is simply the momentum of floods of emotions? We check in here in one place and without much notice we are suddenly way downstream in a mess of anger or vitriol or even great sadness.

My heart breaks for all of those in the Texas floods who did not get a chance to grab a branch. My heart breaks for the floods of emotions that will certainly be overwhelming the loved ones they have left behind. I pray those loved ones, even if by some miracle, will find a branch in their floods.

May some of us be so kind as to BE those branches.

And I also stand reminded that when I am feeling swept away by my own rush of emotions, when I feel my emotions carrying me off to places I don't want to go, carrying me off to be a person I don't want to be, that for me I am blessed to know there is always a branch.

I pray I continue to get better at grabbing it.

​One of the greatest gifts of writing and sharing for 20 years is I have a record of my thoughts over time. I get opportunities to reflect once again on reflections of my past.

I get to see how I have changed. How times have changed. And in many cases, how things have remained much the same.

I wrote the following article on July 4, 2013. Twelve years ago. I suppose there is a little of everything in this article. There is a little I have changed, a little times have changed, and certainly in many ways, there is plenty of nothing has changed at all.

***

Today we will head up to take in a July 4th Washington Nationals baseball game. We'll probably eat a hot dog or two, and before the evening is over, take in some fireworks.

It will be an All-American day.

Sometimes I wonder what the founding fathers would think of our America today. Their Declaration of Independence wasn't as much about a vision for their day as it was about a future day. Our day. I've heard our media and politicians and vocal proponents of various ideals give unsolicited responses to my wonder about those founding fathers many times lately.

I hear them say our founding fathers are rolling over in their graves. I'm guessing they believe they wouldn't think well of how we've implemented their plan.

I personally disagree with them all.

I subscribe to the quote above. That freedom, the freedom our founding fathers dreamt of and fought for, and many since have given their lives to keep hold of, has its life in the spirit of men. I know our country has its fair share of ill-spirited citizens. I personally know one or two of them. But the overwhelming majority of the people in my life, and the people in the lives of the people in my life, are beautiful people. They are grateful for the opportunities freedom has presented them, and live lives dedicated to serving others.

I've heard it said that the America we once knew is dying. That may be true. To at least some degree everything is dying. But the freedom Mr. Eisenhower speaks of above is alive and well, at least in my community of friends and family.

For that, I am grateful.