I want to start today's episode by just asking for your grace and patience as I kind of try to

navigate the proper words to say or at least how to communicate clearly. I think the last week

has been probably the hardest week of my life.

I don't think that's an exaggeration.

I do think that maybe I have a tendency to exaggerate.

Maybe that's what teachers and storytellers do to tell a good story.

But I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that this has been the hardest week, two weeks of my life.

And, you know, even as I sit down to hit the record button and to share with you, my chest

is tight and my heart is beating fast and everything in me doesn't want to do this.

But when I started that tired

several years ago, Layla and I were in the middle of a very, very difficult season of marriage.

I've shared about this so many times over the last nearly decade. But we were on the brink of

divorce and it was Layla getting up and praying

for me in the middle of the night without me knowing. And me finding out about that that really

softened my heart and started to draw me back to his. And I happened to share about that online,

share that story of her praying for me. And it went viral and, um,

some guys reached out. Dad tired wasn't a thing at all. I wasn't trying to start a ministry at all.

But some guys reached out and said, you know, you should start a podcast. And back then there was,

there was very, there were hardly any podcast. I didn't even know what that was. But I had looked into it and

what I found was that it was really therapeutic actually for me to just sit in front of my

computer, my little laptop. I actually started to do the first couple episodes even on my phone.

But just in front of the computer in my bedroom and to process all the chaos that was going on

...