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Yesterday (August 14, 2026) I was lying in a recovery room at the hospital, still groggy from sedation, when the cardiologist walked in and delivered the news.
Three blockages. One at 70-80%. One at 80%. One at 100%.
The next words out of his mouth were ones I had heard before — standing beside my dad, my sister, and my father-in-law in their own hospital rooms. CABG. Coronary artery bypass graft. Open heart surgery.
I know what that road looks like. I have walked it with people I love. The surgery itself. The ICU. The long, grinding six-month recovery. The limitations, the fatigue, the slow crawl back to something that resembles normal.
And here is what my brain did in about thirty seconds flat: Nancy is trying to retire after 35 years in the classroom. We are working toward living on one income. We are looking at moving to a less expensive city. I am building an additional income stream to support all of that. I do not have time for this.
Maybe you know that feeling. Not just the fear of what is coming, but the furious, helpless frustration of bad news arriving at the worst possible moment. Life does not ask permission before it disrupts your plans.
It’s Okay to Name the Weight
I want to say something to you before I go any further, and I need you to hear it clearly.
You are allowed to feel the weight of hard news.
When Jesus went to the Garden of Gethsemane the night before the crucifixion, he did not walk in with clenched teeth and a stiff spine. Luke tells us he was in agony. His sweat became like great drops of blood falling to the ground (Luke 22:44). He knelt down and he prayed, and what came out of his mouth was raw and honest: “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me.”
That is not weakness. That is the Son of God modeling what it looks like to be fully human in the middle of suffering.
Men have been trained — by culture, by upbringing, sometimes even by bad theology — to push through, suppress, and perform. To act like nothing is wrong. To say “I’m fine” when we are clearly not fine. But Jesus does not model that. He names the cup. He tells his Father exactly what he does not want.
Whatever your valley looks like right now — a diagnosis, a failing marriage, a business that is collapsing, a prodigal son, a grief you cannot shake — you are allowed to say out loud, to God and to trusted men, “this is hard.” God is not offended. He is not surprised. He meets you in honest grief far more readily than he meets you in performed strength.
The Most Important Word in That Prayer
But Jesus does not stop there. And that is the whole point.
After naming the cup, after the honest and agonizing request that it be taken away, Jesus prays seven of the most important words in all of Scripture: “Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.” (Luke 22:42)
That word — nevertheless — is a hinge. It is the pivot between honest pain and active surrender. It does not erase the weight of what he just said. It does not pretend the cup is light. It simply chooses, deliberately and at great personal cost, to place God’s agenda above his own.
And here is what I need you to understand: this is not passive resignation. Jesus did not shrug and say “whatever.” He went to the cross. Surrender is not the absence of will — it is the redirection of it. It is choosing, on purpose, to trust God’s plan over your own timeline.
I am still learning this. Right now, in real time, I am trying to say “nevertheless YOUR will” over the surgery that is coming, over the six months of recovery that will disrupt everything Nancy and I have been building toward, over the income plans that will have to pause, over the move that will have to wait. I will not pretend that comes easily.
But here is the challenge I am putting in front of you, because I am putting it in front of myself: What are you white-knuckling right now? What plan, what timeline, what outcome are you holding so tightly that you have not yet opened your hands to God? Name it. Then lay it down. That is what men of God do. That is what Jesus did.
The David Pattern: Cry, Remember, Praise
The Psalms are not just comfort poetry. They are a practice. A repeatable pattern for men who are in the valley and need a path through it.
Watch what David does. He opens Psalm 25 with his posture: “To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.” (Psalm 25:1) He is in trouble — surrounded by enemies, ashamed, waiting on God — and his first move is to lift his eyes upward. Not to pretend everything is fine. Not to perform. But to deliberately orient himself toward God in the middle of the mess.
Then he cries out honestly. He names his need, his fear, his shame. He does not edit himself before God.
Then he remembers. He rehearses who God is and what God has done. He recalls faithfulness. He builds his case for hope not on his circumstances but on God’s character and track record.
Then he closes in praise.
That is the pattern. Cry. Remember. Praise. And it is not a one-time formula — it is a discipline. It is something you practice until it becomes the reflex of your soul in hard moments.
Here is where it gets personal for me. I watched God carry my dad through this surgery. I watched him carry my sister. I watched him carry my father-in-law. He was faithful to them in the recovery rooms, in the rehabilitation, in the long slow months of healing. He did not abandon them. He will not abandon me.
What has God already done for you? Go back and name it. Write it down if you have to. That act of deliberate remembering is not nostalgia — it is worship. And it is one of the most powerful weapons you have against despair.
You are not weak for feeling the weight. You are spiritually mature when you refuse to stay there.
Walking Through, Not Stopped In
I keep coming back to Psalm 23:4. David says: “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.”
The valley of the shadow of death is a passage. Not a parking lot.
David does not say he avoids it. He does not say God removes it before he gets there. He says he walks through it. And the reason he can walk through it without fear is not because the valley is not dark. It is because he is not alone in it.
“For you are with me.” That is the ground of his courage. Not favorable circumstances. Not a good prognosis. Not a clear plan. The presence of God is what makes a dark valley walkable.
The rod and the staff are not decoration. A shepherd uses a rod to fight off predators and a staff to guide and rescue wandering sheep. God is not a passive observer of your suffering. He is actively working in it — guiding, protecting, redirecting — even when you cannot see what he is doing.
The next six months are going to be hard. I know that going in. There will be pain and fatigue and limitations I am not used to. There will be days when the recovery feels longer than it is. But I am not walking alone. Neither are you.
Stop waiting for the valley to end before you trust him. Trust him in it. Walk through it with him today.
What I Want to Be on the Other Side
I do not want to come through this with bitterness. I do not want to emerge from surgery and recovery as a man who endured something difficult and came out smaller, harder, more guarded.
I want to be the kind of man who walked through the fire and came out with deeper faith. A man whose wife has seen him face fear honestly and surrender genuinely. A man whose family watched him trust God when trusting God was costly. A man his brothers could follow into the hard places because he went there first and came back to say “God was faithful.”
That is what I want. And if you are honest, I think that is what you want too.
God may be using your valley — whatever shape it takes — to build exactly that kind of man in you right now. The surgery, the loss, the financial pressure, the marriage that is barely holding together. None of it is wasted in his hands. He is forging something in you that fair weather never could.
Do Not Carry This Alone
Here is my challenge to you before you close this article.
Write your own “nevertheless” prayer today. Start with honest grief — name the cup you are holding. Then surrender it. Then name one specific thing God has done for you in the past that proves he can be trusted with your present. Do not rush it. Sit with it. Let it be real.
And then — do not carry your valley alone.
That is exactly what GraceMen Frisco exists for. Not a room full of men who have it all together, but a table of men who are willing to show up honestly, bear one another’s burdens, and walk through the hard things together. Paul is not being poetic when he writes, “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” (Galatians 6:2) He is describing what Christian brotherhood is actually for.
Bring your valley to the table. There are men here who have walked dark roads and will walk yours with you.
“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.” (Psalm 23:4)
He is with you. And so are we.
