Back in 2005, I was living the dream.
Oh my gosh, I was living in New York City,
and a musical that I'd written with my friend, The Ark,
was going to be off Broadway.
And I thought, "This is my destiny."
I could just see my future unfolding before me.
What I didn't realize is that whatever
is written in the stars is not as powerful as what's
written in the New York Times, and we got crucified.
And it didn't last very long.
It broke my heart.
I was crushed, and I think I know something about heartache.
And then a year goes by, and I find out
what heartache's really about.
My son comes out and says, "Dad, I can't do it anymore.
I'm gay.
And I've tried to do everything you said.
I went on my mission.
I was an Eagle Scout.
And I don't know how to get through it.
And the stuff that you have tried to tell me about this
has not been helpful."
Well, it broke my heart in a real heartbreaking way.
And so I thought, "Well, I need some answers from heaven."
So I started praying like I'd never prayed before.
How do I help my son get through this?
How do I hold my family together?
I just begged God to talk to me.
And it was the first time in my life
that I felt like heaven was shut.
It shut down.
I couldn't get past the ceiling.
And I thought, "Well, this is a little challenge."
Well, you think that for a week or two or a month or two.
But two years, and you start asking yourself,
"Wait a minute.
What if I got it wrong?
Not just Church stuff or policy stuff.
What if the issue--is there really a God who hears
my prayers?
Does He know me?
And is there something that I may have done that
offended Him so He won't talk to me?"
I mean, this is the stuff that really matters.
Will I keep the promises when my heart feels nothing?
We make all of our great promises
in life when we're feeling great.
When we fall in love, "Oh, I feel so great.
I love you, I love you."
When we feel the Spirit, "Oh, baptize me.
I'm going to live righteously."
What do we do when we feel nothing,
and we fear that maybe nothing's coming?
Well, that's where I was.
So I got on my knees.
And I'd prayed before, a lot.
And I'd had prayers I believed were answered,
but it'd been so long.
And I said, "I don't know if you're hearing this.
I'm going to quit whining and moaning about this.
I'm going to trust you.
I'm going to trust that there's a reason that I
can't feel your presence.
There's a reason that I feel so abandoned.
I'm going to trust that you're smarter than I am,
that you get this better than I do,
and at some point--and I don't feel like it will ever happen,
but at some point you'll communicate with me
and I'll feel your love, and I won't feel so lost."
I hadn't given up hope, but I'd given up
trying to make myself feel something
or to say what's wrong with me.
After nine years of this faith crisis,
I had this extraordinary experience.
I went into my study.
I'm a songwriter, and for 10 days it was like I got
downloads of songs--just kind of almost out of the blue--because
I had been wondering, what's Jesus really like?
Did I just borrow my idea of Jesus,
or did I really have an understanding
of what He was like?
I realized that when I reviewed the 10 or 12
songs that had come during those 10 days,
that my answer about who Jesus was and how He felt about me
and how I was going to move forward came in songs.
And that's when this revelation that kind of changed my life
happened, that the Lord loved me so personally and so
individually and so completely that He would send
an answer that I would recognize could have only come from Him,
from His heart to mine.
I don't know how else to describe it.
I was overwhelmed with grace.
And then I thought, "Why did this take nine years?"
As I tried to process the story that I've
been sharing with you, I started to make some notes.
Were there times that Jesus was there
and I didn't see Him because I had decided in advance, "Oh,
I know how to get answers to my prayers.
And they come in this box.
This is how God answers prayers, like this.
Every prayer He's ever answered for me came this way"?
Well, what if He was answering me outside the box?
What if there were ways He was trying
to give me hope and reassure me and talk to me,
and it just went over my head because I couldn't see it?
You know, you talk about being humbled.
And I listed 25 things that had happened where the Lord was
reaching out to me.
It was a discovery of the fact that for nine years,
the Lord had not been punishing me by not talking to me.
He was trying to teach me that even when I couldn't see it,
His grace was trying to save me.