My Story

I did not arrive here by a straight road.

The work I do today grew from a lifetime of faith, questions, fatherhood, caregiving, illness, loss, and conversations with God. Some experiences strengthened what I believed. Others forced me to examine it again.

Together, they taught me how to listen.

ROOTED IN FAMILY AND FAITH

I was born in Oklahoma City in September 1957, the first of three children. My earliest memories are filled with extended family, crowded gatherings, Sunday dinners, and the security of belonging.

Faith was part of that world. I was raised in a fourth-generation Nazarene family where church wasn't simply somewhere we went. It shaped our language, relationships, and understanding of what a good life was supposed to look like.

When I was a child, my family moved to Japan. Living within another culture opened my eyes to ways of life far beyond the one I had known. When we returned to Virginia several years later, I discovered that you can come home and still feel changed by where you have been.

I was learning to live between worlds long before I understood how often that would become part of my story.

WHEN FAITH BECAME PERSONAL

In June 1974, at sixteen, I attended a Nazarene teen camp carrying questions I couldn't explain. Outwardly, I could appear confident and joyful. Inside, I was struggling with shame, insecurity, and parts of myself I had been taught to fear.

During a conversation at camp, I heard God as a gentle whisper. I walked to the altar and experienced a freedom I hadn't known before. For the first time, I understood faith as something personal rather than something I had inherited.

Later that summer, while traveling through South Carolina with a church choir, I had another encounter during prayer. I saw myself speaking before thousands of people and heard God say, "I will use your talents to build My kingdom."

I assumed that meant becoming a minister. I didn't feel qualified or ready, and I spent years questioning what I had heard. I never became the kind of minister I imagined that night.

The call didn't disappear. It simply took a different form.

FATHERHOOD AND THE LIFE I HAD TO REBUILD

I married in 1982 and became the father of two sons. Fatherhood gave me a sense of purpose that reached deeper than anything I had known.

When the marriage ended, I became the primary parent. I went from caring for the home to finding work that could support my sons and give them stability. We returned to Northern Virginia, where I began what became a long federal career.

Those years taught me to keep showing up even when I wasn't certain what came next. They taught me responsibility in practical terms: meals, school schedules, bills, difficult decisions, and being present when my children depended on me.

During those same years, I was trying to understand what it meant to be a gay man within a religious culture that had taught me to fear that truth. It took time to separate the rejection of religious people from the love of God.

God had not turned away from me. Learning that changed everything.

THE CONVERSATION THAT CHANGED HOW I LISTENED

In February 1992, my life felt broken. My marriage had left me angry, rejected, and misplaced. During a walk at Accotink, that anger turned toward God.

I blamed Him. I cursed. Then I demanded, "If You are really there, why don't You say something?"

Everything around me went silent.

The answer wasn't an audible voice. It rose from within my chest with a force I couldn't mistake:

"AND WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE ME SAY?"

I didn't receive an explanation for everything that had happened. I received something I had been seeking beneath all that anger: the knowledge that God had not abandoned me.

That conversation changed the way I listened. It became the beginning of my writing and the first seed of the work I would later build.

LEAVING SECURITY BEHIND

My federal career provided stability and taught me how to lead, organize, solve problems, and work with people carrying very different expectations. Still, the call to write continued.

In 2006, I left the security of Washington and moved to North Carolina to pursue writing. It was a leap of faith, though it didn't always feel brave while I was living it.

Writing opened another part of me. I wrote poems, stories, spiritual reflections, and the conversations that became God Speaks: A Dialogue. The book took years because I spent much of that time questioning whether I was worthy of the assignment.

Later, my life in South Carolina brought another period of spiritual discovery. Intuitive gifts that had surfaced quietly for years became harder to ignore. I began teaching self-awareness classes and working with people who were trying to understand patterns in their own lives.

Once again, I had to separate what religious institutions said about me from what I experienced in prayer. I came to accept that these gifts weren't outside my relationship with God. They were part of the responsibility He had placed in my hands.

THE YEARS THAT BROUGHT ME HOME

I eventually returned to Virginia, where caregiving became central to my life. I cared for people I loved as memory faded, health declined, and independence became harder to maintain.

Caregiving taught me that love is often expressed through ordinary repetition. You show up. You handle what the day brings. You sit beside someone when there is nothing left to fix.

Then my own body demanded attention.

In February 2021, I discovered a lump above my left nipple. Testing confirmed breast cancer. I underwent a left mastectomy and lymph node surgery that August.

When chemotherapy was recommended, I prayed for direction and believed God told me not to take it. That was personal guidance for my situation, not medical advice for anyone else. The decision led to further cardiac evaluation, which uncovered severe blockages in my heart.

On November 30, 2021, I underwent quintuple bypass surgery.

I returned home one week later, barely beginning my recovery. Before the month ended, my mother became critically ill. She died on December 31.

Radiation treatments began soon afterward. While I was recovering, my father was diagnosed with prostate cancer and began treatment of his own.

These experiences didn't arrive as tidy lessons. I was tired. I was grieving. At times, I was frightened. Faith didn't remove those feelings, but it gave me somewhere to stand while I moved through them.

Health issues and family caregiving have continued. My father later suffered a stroke, and I remain involved in his care. Life is still unpredictable.

What has changed is how I respond.

WHAT I HAVE BEEN CALLED TO BUILD

I once believed that answering God's call required a pulpit. My life has taught me otherwise.

Through writing and publishing, I give stories the homes they deserve. Through Shepherd's Way Ministries, I create places where people can study Scripture, listen for God, and grow alongside others.

My intuitive and coaching work helps people see patterns that may be shaping their choices. The Life Purpose Project helps people recognize the purpose already present in their lives and begin acting upon it. Eden Creative Designs gives ideas a physical form that can travel into the world.

These aren't unrelated ventures. Each one began with listening and responding.

WHAT MY STORY MEANS FOR OUR CONVERSATION

If you came to this page trying to decide whether I might understand where you are coming from, I won't pretend that I have lived your life.

I have learned what it feels like to question my worth, rebuild after rejection, care for people I love, confront my mortality, and wrestle honestly with God. I know that circumstances can change without permission.

I also believe that choice remains.

You choose how you respond. You choose which meaning you carry forward. You choose whether the next chapter repeats what came before or begins something different.

My role isn't to make those choices for you. It is to listen, help bring what may be hidden into view, and stand beside you while you decide what comes next.

IF SOMETHING IN MY STORY MEETS SOMETHING IN YOURS

You are welcome to begin a conversation.

CONTACT KYLE