A Season Marked by God’s Goodness

Over these last few weeks, I’ve found myself reflecting deeply on the goodness of God in ways I haven’t before. It has been a season marked not by one singular moment, but by a series of gentle reminders that God is nearer, kinder, and more involved in our everyday lives than we often realize. Sometimes His goodness shows up in dramatic ways, and sometimes it slips in quietly through the ordinary rhythms of life. This winter, I’ve experienced both.

The first major snow of the season arrived with the kind of force only Iowa can muster—a thick, heavy storm that blanketed everything in its path. If I’m honest, the cold was one of the reasons we moved away years ago. Winter has a way of pressing into your bones, reminding you that you’re not as young or invincible as you once felt. But this storm felt different. As the snow fell steadily over the metro, I didn’t feel that familiar dread. Instead, I felt peace—a calm assurance that we are exactly where God wants us to be. Even as we fought our way through the snow piling up downtown while I was in a wedding at St. Ambrose this weekend… there was a quiet comfort in knowing that God has settled us here for a purpose. It’s funny how He can take something that once pushed you away and use it to draw your heart back home.

But even that moment paled in comparison to the unexpected miracle God unfolded in a doctor’s office just days later. For most of my life, I’ve been told there was a hole in my eardrum—nearly the size of a nickel. It happened when I received tubes as a young child. For as long as I can remember, every doctor who looked at it seemed to confirm the same story. I have always suffered from limited hearing. It has affected my life in a pretty big way throughout. I had accepted it as a kind of permanent limitation, something that would always be part of my life. But then my health got worse recently, and a growth was discovered behind that hole in the ear drum.  This meant surgery, a pretty invasive one at that.  It meant a long recovery.  I had been given the diagnosis, and prepped on the long road ahead.  But it seemed God had other plans.

This weekend my uncle, our lead pastor Dan, invited the whole church to pray over me. As our people laid their hands on our family and Dan prayed boldly for miraculous healing, I felt something shift inside. My heart cried out to God in a way it never had before. I longed for healing. I longed for restoration. Truthfully, I just wanted this constant sickness to finally end.

What happened next left me stunned. I went into the specialists office this week to consult on the road ahead. After examining my ear, the doctor looked puzzled—not concerned, but surprised. What he saw was not what anyone had seen before. No hole. No growth. Just a thin part of my eardrum creating a small pocket. Something completely different from what I had been told my entire life, and even different from what was seen just a week earlier. They sent me for a hearing test, and after reviewing the results, the doctor suggested that putting in tubes may not just stop the sickness but could also restore my hearing that I’ve lived a life without. A simple procedure. Twenty minutes. Nothing complicated. But that small, almost insignificant procedure changed my life in a way I never imagined.

For the first time in my memory, I walked out of a clinic and heard the world clearly.

It’s difficult to describe what it feels like to suddenly experience sound with a fullness I didn’t know I was missing. The bathroom fan that I barely noticed before now feels like it could shake the walls. A light switch flipped in the next room is suddenly unmistakable. The sound of my wife walking across the kitchen or closing a cabinet door catches my attention in ways it never has. And the strangest adjustment of all has been trying to navigate moments where multiple sounds overlap—voices, television, footsteps, toys, appliances. What used to blend together into a quiet blur now reaches me with clarity, and at times it’s overwhelming. But even in the overwhelm, it feels like a gift—a holy one.

The greatest gift, though, has been hearing my children’s voices with fresh clarity. Oakley and Evelyn are growing so quickly that I often find myself trying to slow time down just to take it all in. Every day they discover something new, every day they become a little more themselves. But now, hearing the exact pitch of Evelyn’s tiny giggles, or the excitement in Oakley’s voice when she tells me about her day, feels like something sacred. It’s as if God handed me a new soundtrack to the life I’ve been living all along, and only now am I hearing it the way it was meant to be heard. Scripture says, “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights” (James 1:17), and I can’t help but believe that this healing—unexpected, gentle, and life-changing—is exactly that.

There’s another verse that has echoed in my heart throughout this season: “But You, O Lord, are a shield for me, my glory and the One who lifts up my head” (Psalm 3:3). That’s what this season feels like. After months of sickness, uncertainty, and exhaustion, God has been the One lifting my head. Not just restoring my hearing, but restoring my strength, my peace, my joy in the everyday moments. He has shielded our family, carried us through the hard weeks, and reminded us that even when life feels chaotic, He remains steady.

I find myself thankful in ways I haven’t been before. Thankful for the sound of my daughters playing in the next room. Thankful for the warmth inside our home while snow blankets the world outside. Thankful for a wife whose steady love and servant-hearted strength continue to anchor our family. I pray that God also intervenes in her neck in a similar way.  Her pain is debilitating still in the mornings, and her road to recovery begins in a couple short weeks as well.  We ask you to join us in prayer that God intervenes and heals her completely as well.

I’m also thankful for a church that prays, supports, and surrounds us with genuine community. Thankful for healing, for clarity, for the simple ability to hear my name spoken without strain. But more than anything, thankful for a God who sees every detail—big or small—and moves on behalf of His children.

I don’t know what the coming year will hold, but I know the God who holds us. And His goodness isn’t just something we talk about—it’s something we live, feel, hear, and witness every single day. If this season has taught me anything, it’s that God’s kindness is woven into the fabric of our lives in ways we often overlook. Sometimes we see it in the snow falling outside our window. Sometimes in the miracle of a restored ear. And sometimes in the laughter of children who remind us what joy truly sounds like.

In all of it, His goodness remains. Always present. Always faithful. Always enough.

And in this season I am more grateful than ever.