May 31, 2025 – Morning Walk

May 31, 2025 – Morning Walk

I’m walking back to the hotel now with a warm black tea in hand. The sun is slowly rising, and the birds are already awake—chirping from a telephone wire above. One sits on the third line up. I stop and listen.

There’s an electrical box along the way—covered in jackets and shorts, like someone tossed them there and moved on. I don’t know where they came from, but they catch my attention. Then I glance up at the balconies of nearby apartments. People live in those spaces. So many different lives unfolding all around me. Everyone has a story.

I keep walking and come to a fork, a fence just up ahead dividing the two paths. To the right is the back of a shopping center, where Edible Arrangements sits quiet in the early light. To the left, the cracked sidewalk runs along the road. It’s uneven and challenging compared to the smooth, safer way on the right.

I choose the road of adversity and challenge.

I breathe deep, ground myself, and begin my breathwork.

The birds fly again—small, quick, chirping in flight. So alive. So beautiful.

“All things are echoes of the Voice for God.”

I turn the corner and step off the bricks. That’s when I see him.

A man is sleeping on the hard concrete near the edge of the shopping center. Not tucked away in shadow, but directly under one of those bright fluorescent lights—completely exposed. His shoes are kicked off, his body stretched out on his stomach, head turned sideways on what might be a jacket for a pillow. No blanket. Just concrete. Just light.

And out front in the parking lot—a towering POKER sign glows above rows of parked cars. People have clearly been there all night, still inside playing.

They’ve been entertained.

He’s been enduring.

Just trying to find a place to rest his head.

I pause. He can’t see me.

But I see him.

And I send him a quiet blessing:

“May the Lord bless you and keep you safe, all the days of your life.”

I look up. The clouds are shaped like cotton candy—soft, stretched, transforming in the morning sky. I breathe in. Hold it. Release.

Across the street, I see a Bowlero Bowling Alley—but not the one Bella Love is bowling in today.

God is good. All the time.

And today… is about Bella Love.

Her performance. Her light.

Today is about me watching her—not as her coach, but as her dad. Present. Joyful. Free.

It’s about sharing that joy with Barbi like never before.

I’m committed to showing up fully—as a husband, a father, and a godly man. Not because I’m trying to earn anything.

But because I know who I am.

And because I know whose I am.