Radiant. He was, is, will always be.

I’ve gotten it right. I’ve blown it all up. I’ve been the favorite and the failure. And what I’ve come to see is this—none of it changes Him. My outcomes don’t rattle His throne. My detours don’t dim His light.

Whether I’m ahead of the curve or flat on my back, He is still who He’s always been: King of Kings. Radiant. He was, is, will always be.

There comes a point when you start to wonder if you missed it.

Not just a job opportunity. Not just a season.
But your life.
Your calling.
That elusive thing people talk about when they say, “I was made for this.”

Maybe you played it safe. Or maybe you risked too much.
Maybe you tried to please everyone. Or maybe you ran so far from expectations you ended up in a place you never meant to go.

Either way, the feeling hits the same:
Did I already miss what I was meant to become?

I’ve felt that.

The ache of wondering if the door has already closed and no one had the courtesy to tell you. The late nights where scrolling turns into comparing. The quiet question you never say out loud—“Is it too late?”

This reflection isn’t written from the mountaintop.
It’s written from that place.
The in-between. The unraveling. The moment after the momentum dies.

And for me, that moment had a very specific timestamp.

Fall, 1996.

I had just met a very special young woman. The kind of woman who carried peace in her eyes and strength in her presence. I was all vision and ambition. She was all depth and grace. It was the beginning of something real. I knew it. And I had a plan.

Seattle.

I had been accepted into the design program at the University of Washington. I had arranged to live and work on a farm near Molbak’s Nursery. I had my 240sx packed to the brim with all the essentials for starting a new life and, if I’m honest, I was feeling pretty confident that I was on the right path.

Then, just like that—everything fell apart.

The car was stolen.

Not metaphorically—literally.

Gone.

And with it, my plans, my timeline, and my sense of control.
All of it vanished overnight.

I was in such disbelief, I tracked down the guy who stole it.
I found his name. I found where he was staying.
And I sat outside his apartment for three straight days—waiting.
Imagining what I might say… or do.
Thankfully—for both of us—he never showed.

And honestly, I didn’t know what to do after that either.

Because instead of being in Seattle, starting school, proposing to Myra, and designing the future I had dreamed of—I was back home.
In Conroe, Texas.
Sleeping in my sister’s pink bedroom at my parents’ house.

No school.
No car.
No clue what was next.

And I started to wonder… maybe I missed it.

Maybe that was it. Maybe my window had closed. Maybe the path I was made for now belonged to someone else.

It was in that space—the awkward, unfinished, disappointing in-between—that something deeper began to stir.

Not a lightning bolt. Not a new opportunity.
But a quiet, unexplainable invitation to open my hands.

To stop gripping what was lost.
To stop replaying the collapse.
To stop asking life to go back to what it was.

It wasn’t clear at the time.
But looking back now, it was the beginning of something far better than the plan I had mapped out.

Because I didn’t need a reset.
I needed redemption.

This is the story of how that unfolded.

Radiant isn’t about perfection. It’s about presence.
It’s not a how-to. It’s a testimony.
A journal of the unexpected, the unfair, and the unbelievable ways something holy still shines through the broken places.

Even when we lose our way.
Even when the car gets stolen.
Even when we sit in rooms we never planned to return to.

There’s something—Someone—greater at work.
And He doesn’t just rebuild the life we wanted.
He reveals the life we were made for.

Let’s start there.