I am the husband of an amazing wife and the father of six wonderful children, ranging from young adults to a five-year-old. I love my life. But like most families, the life we have today was shaped by a road we never could have predicted.

Our family has walked through medical crises, disability, trauma, financial uncertainty, parenting struggles, and seasons when simply figuring out the next step felt overwhelming. My oldest daughter was born with a serious heart condition and eventually suffered a cardiac arrest. Other children in our family have faced their own challenges with learning disabilities, ADHD, speech difficulties, seizures, and the effects trauma can have on a child and family.

Through all of it, one lesson has continued to surface:

You don't need to see the whole path to take the next step.

That idea is at the heart of One Step Forward.

My Christian faith has shaped the way I understand both the suffering our family has experienced and the hope that has carried us through it. I haven't learned these lessons from a distance. I've wrestled with fear, questioned what God was doing, tried to control things that were far beyond my control, and discovered again and again that faith doesn't always mean knowing how the story will end. Sometimes it simply means trusting God enough to take the next step.

My professional life has given me another perspective on these same struggles. I work as an Education Specialist in an autism program and have spent many years serving children with significant behavioral and developmental needs and their families. I earned my master's degree in Special Education from Fresno Pacific University, where my thesis explored how viewing our work as ministry can influence the way we serve others.

I've also had the unusual privilege of sitting on both sides of the IEP table—as the educator leading and advocating in meetings and as the parent hoping someone across the table truly sees and understands my child. Those experiences have taught me a great deal about children, behavior, disability, trauma, families, and the importance of meeting people with both truth and compassion.

But One Step Forward is about more than education, parenting, or even our family's story.

It is for anyone who has found themselves somewhere they never expected to be.

Maybe you're walking through grief, a frightening diagnosis, a struggling marriage, parenting challenges, financial hardship, trauma, disappointment, or simply a season when God feels quieter than you wish He did. Your story may look nothing like mine, but I suspect we have something in common: sometimes life leaves us staring at a road we don't know how to walk.

I don't have all the answers, and this isn't a place where I intend to pretend that I do. What I can share are the things God has taught me through Scripture, suffering, family, ministry, and years spent walking alongside people facing struggles of their own.

My hope is that One Step Forward becomes a place where honest stories meet biblical truth, where people who are struggling can find encouragement without empty answers, and where we can learn together what it means to keep trusting God when we cannot see the whole path.

Because sometimes you don't need to know how you're going to make it all the way through.

You just need enough faith to take one step forward.