God's story, your life. Unfolding short stories.

I was never a dad who thought he'd have a son in prison. Never. Not in a million years.

We were the family that went to church a couple times a week. I even served as the pastor of that church for five of those years.

We read the Bible consistently and overall maintained a pretty healthy relationship with our sons.

But then we had some challenges.

When my oldest son was a sophomore in high school, I knew we had the potential for full-on rebellion. And honestly,

I knew how I should handle it. But I was the pastor. We were in a fishbowl. The other parents

of teens were watching us. So instead of handling my sons like I knew I should, I gave into the

pressure and drew a hard line. I drew the line and

they erased it. And because it was two of them, they had power. They had momentum. And I couldn't

just squelch it. Well, this led to 10 long years of estrangement. Alcohol led to opioids, which

led to heroin. Heroin led to a tragic car

accident with one man dead and my middle son with a 10-year prison sentence. At first, I was

furious with Lucas. Of course I was. He'd done the unthinkable in taking a life. But then he broke. I saw a son I hadn't seen

in ten years. It was at L.A. County J.L., and we were the only two in the visiting room. A very

rare occurrence. Each of us was holding phones, talking through half-inch glass, and all of the sudden he broke down into tears,

wailing, his shoulders heaving, his face buried in his lap, and I just watched.

I knew my 27-year-old son needed to come to terms with the wreckage his life had become.

It was a sad moment, to be sure, but also a beautiful one, because this started the recovery

of our relationship.

I started to write him letters and he wrote me.

I really opened up my life to him.

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