What I couldn’t not do was be a Psychologist. I graduated in 1992 from the University of North Texas with my PhD in Clinical Psychology. I joined the U.S. Air Force in 1991, and served in the Washington DC area, Japan, and Wichita Falls, TX. I got out of the Air Force so I could work part-time and focus more on my family. (When I separated from the Air Force our son, Caleb, was 4; Matthew came along about 2 years later).

I’ve always loved to write. I have lots of schooling, but nothing more than the typical college English classes. My writing improved a lot when I wrote my dissertation (painful, but helpful). I’m not sure when I started thinking about writing as a real endeavor, but I did know this: I wanted to write only when I knew what God wanted me to write. In my mind I was a writer who had just never written anything.

In the fall of 2009, we began attending LakeRidge United Methodist Church in Lubbock, TX (yes, I’ve lived a lot of places). As a church, we began reading The Hole in Our Gospel, by Richard Stearns. That book stands as one of the most important books I’ve ever read. (I’ll probably write about it at some point – stay tuned…or just go get it yourself). That book planted in me a concern for the poor, unlike anything I had ever felt before. During Lent in 2013, I read and experienced another important book – A Place at the Table: 40 Days of Solidarity with the Poor, by Chris Seay. It focused my concern, and broke my heart, for those living in poverty. In late 2013, I realized I had found my writing-calling. It was that thing that I HAD to write about…