Something just shifted.
Not a small shift. Not a mood. Not a moment.
A shift.
I can’t fully explain it—but I can feel it down in the bones. It’s the collision of two callings. Pastor… and chaplain. Not competing. Not dividing. Merging. Like two rivers crashing into one current, and suddenly the flow gets deeper… stronger… unavoidable.
And here’s what’s shaking me—
I am profoundly rewarded doing hospice chaplaincy.
As a pastor, I’ve tasted it. Sunday mornings. Hands lifted. People coming forward. Tears breaking loose at the altar. I’ve taken those hands, prayed those prayers, felt that holy moment when heaven leans in close.
But hospice?
That’s different.
Those people don’t have time the way others ‘think’ they do.
They’re not circling the runway.
They’re landing.
And because of that, everything changes.
They slip—quickly, naturally—into end-of-life reality. Into decisions most people spend their whole lives avoiding. No pretending. No delaying. No spiritual procrastination.
It’s like when the word came to Hezekiah:
“Set your house in order… for you shall die.”
That’s not poetry when you’re in hospice.
That’s not a sermon illustration.
That’s now.
And yes—there are affairs to settle. Legal things. Financial things. Important things.
But those are not the greatest things.
The greatest affairs…
…are the affairs of the heart.
Forgiveness.
Reconciliation.
Peace with God.
Are you ready?
Not ready to talk about it.
Not ready to think about it.
Ready.
Ready to meet Jesus.
And when I sit with them—when they begin to pray, not politely, not rehearsed, but raw… when tears come from a place deeper than words… when they call on God with everything they’ve got left—
You can feel Him.
Not theory. Not theology.
Presence.
Thick. Near. Undeniable.
The palpable Presence of the Lord settles in that room just as real—just as powerful—as any altar call in a Pentecostal service.
Maybe stronger.
Because there’s no crowd.
No performance.
Just a soul… and eternity… and God.
And this Easter—
I can’t just talk about resurrection.
I’ve felt it.
He didn’t just rise from the grave.
He resurrected something in me.
Things I thought were buried—hopes, desires, callings I had quietly laid down and walked away from—He brought them back to life.
The call to chaplaincy.
The hunger to go deeper.
The desire to grow, to train, to sharpen—to even pursue counseling, to stretch this calling further than I ever planned.
He put me here.
And I’m not turning back.
So this isn’t just a blog.
This is a prayer.
Thank You, Father.
Thank You, Jesus.
The Great Shepherd.
The true Comforter.
The Chaplain who never leaves the bedside.
The One who walks people all the way through the valley…
…and brings them home.
Thank You, Jesus.