“I have a deep-seated passion for spiritual direction. I pray I can be a guiding light, helping individuals overcome the lies they believe about God, themselves, and the purpose of life, so they can experience the transformative embrace of His Kingdom.”

“I’ve always considered myself a child at heart. As both a professor and counselor, witnessing the moment of insight when the lightbulb comes on is an unparalleled joy. Perhaps it’s my childlike wonder that make these connections so special.”

For Children

Through stories, children can learn about God and about themselves. They can learn

how to navigate their fears, how to love those who are different, how to manage

struggles, and how to have confidence in the face of conflict or bullying. Above all,

they can relish the joys or innocence and the excitement of new discovery.

Cody‘s Story

Cody had a rare, degenerative and progressive neurological disorder that he developed at 18 months of age. It progressed in the last four years of his life to the point where it was life threatening on a continuous basis. For example, he had to have breathing assistance and oxygen at night to survive while he slept. He was hospitalized four times, intubated eleven times, and his heart had stopped twice before he finally went home with Jesus on August 23, 2007 at age 17.

He was one of those rare individuals whose presence immediately impacted those around him. Because of his strong relationship with God, Cody always believed he could do whatever he set his heart and mind to do; in spite of what the doctors, the world, circumstances and appearances might say to the contrary. What he accomplished was “impossible,” according to everyone else but Jesus and Cody; and he did more in 17 years than many people accomplish in a lifetime.

He received his second dan black belt in Tae Kwon Do and went for two consecutive years to the Junior Olympics in Tae Kwon Do (in order to go you must finish in the top three in your state competition), where he received national recognition in the form of multiple medals for his indomitable spirit and perseverance. He played youth soccer, baseball, and football. He was the starting center on his football team, until he could no longer balance well enough to snap the ball, at which point, refusing to be deterred, he moved to tackle. His pediatric neuro-ophthalmologist stated it was impossible for him to read, with his uncontrolled jerky eye movements, yet he read extensively, including such difficult works as the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and even the Silmarillion (a Tolkien history of middle earth, like reading a very long Chronicles in the Bible). In fact, he loved to read more than anything .He even wrote his own stories. The doctor said it was a miracle. In spite of being told he would struggle with doing any schoolwork at all, academic testing showed him scoring up to Masters level of comprehension in reading. Because he had difficulty with the fine motor skill of writing, he did all math, even complex problems, in his head.

Cody was also quite a Bible scholar. Our adult Sunday school leader loved to email Cody to discuss Scripture. For example, one such question, sent via email, asked Cody for an explanation of how grace and the law coexisted. The teacher went on to say, “I can see the love of God through the rest of the Bible, but the law confuses me. What am I missing?” Cody’s response was simple and to the point: “Didn’t Jesus say the whole law was summed up in love God with all your heart and mind and soul and strength? That is grace. What is confusing about that?” Cody went on to say, “Maybe we don’t understand because we don’t start with love from our heart, and we try to do the right things with our behavior when we really need to start in our hearts with ‘love God.’”

In spite of his physical circumstances, he continued to have an unyielding positive spirit, smiling and joking all the time (the nurses told us he was the first patient they had ever had in the hospital PICU who smiled around an intubation tube), always saying he could do anything, never giving up or giving in. In the words of the ex-Special Forces veteran who served as Cody’s Tae Kwon Do Master, “There is something about Cody that reduces grown men to tears.”