Chapter 4: The Visitor

Chapter 4: The Visitor

Theme: Spiritual Awakening and Surrender

It was the summer after my senior year of college baseball. My cleats were still dirty from the last inning I pitched at Lamar, but I already felt something shifting inside. The identity I’d worn since I was a boy—Brian the athlete—was quietly beginning to unravel.

I didn’t know what would come next. So I gave.

I started volunteering at an assisted living facility. I’d show up, bring presence, give support, and most days I carried with me a green Mag Creator roller from Nikken—a Japanese health and wellness company whose tools I had discovered and loved. It looked like a soft plastic rolling pin, but to the people whose shoulders I gently rolled it across, it felt like relief. A small gift in their long day.

I wasn’t there for attention. I wasn’t there to prove anything.

I was there to serve.

This story isn’t about a massage. It’s about the quiet way heaven sometimes knocks on your door—disguised as a stranger with perfect timing.

I was in the hallway, rolling the green Mag across someone’s back, when a woman walked by. She had a gentle smile and a kind of peace about her that you can’t fake.

“Are you giving free massages?” she asked.

“I am,” I said. “Would you like one?”

She shook her head, smiling. “No, I’m just visiting someone.”

“How about you?” she asked. “Are you visiting?”

“No,” I said. “I’m just here to help—here to serve, make people feel better.”

That stopped her.

She turned fully toward me and asked about my background—how I was raised, what I believed. I told her I was raised Catholic. I told her how my wife, Barbi, had introduced me to the Baptist church, and how we were visiting different Christian churches, still searching for where we felt connected.

Her name was Easter—spelled like the holiday—but her actual name was Esther. And she began telling me about Jesus—not as a religious symbol, but as a living Savior. She told me if I accepted Jesus into my heart, the Holy Spirit would fill me—from the top of my head to the soles of my feet.

And then she asked if I wanted to pray.

And I said yes.

We prayed together, right there in the hallway.

And something broke open inside me.

I was overwhelmed. Something moved through me that I couldn’t explain. I wasn’t just crying—I was undone. Every piece of my pride, my ego, my false control melted. It felt like a thousand locked doors inside me opening all at once.

And that’s when she said something I will never forget.

“One day, you’re going to be a powerful preacher.”

And my heart froze.

I didn’t say anything, but I thought it:

No I’m not.

And before I could finish the thought…

“No, no,” she interrupted, eyes wide.

“I’m wrong. You’re not going to be a preacher.

You’re going to be a powerful speaker.

You’re going to touch many, many lives.”

That moment felt like the sky cracked open above me. But at the same time, it scared me. I didn’t feel holy. I didn’t feel ready. I was still selfish. Still inconsistent. Still stumbling forward in a world of temporary pleasures and personal ambition.

But something changed in me that day.

And even though I walked away still battling my own sin, still struggling with honesty and direction, I never forgot her words.

I kept the green Mag Creator. I still have it. It’s a quiet reminder of that hallway. That touch. That moment when service and surrender collided and God whispered something new over my life.

I didn’t become a preacher.

But I became a speaker.

And every time I hold a mic in my hand—on a field, in a classroom, at a workshop—I remember Esther.

I remember the hallway.

And I remember the God who didn’t wait for me to get perfect before He started working through me.

To this day, I walk with Christ—not because I have all the answers, but because I finally surrendered to the One who does. And every time I feel the fear of speaking or the weight of responsibility, I go back to that moment and hear her voice:

“You’re going to touch many, many lives.”

And I know now that it wasn’t just a message for me.

It was a calling through me.