In I Am My Biggest Stranger, you trace your spiritual journey through the framework of Dante’s Inferno, exploring self-confrontation, healing, and Christian renewal. What inspired you to tell your story in this way?

I didn’t begin with the idea of writing a book through the framework of Dante’s Inferno. In many ways, I believe it found me.

After my car accident, I was searching for answers. One night I was watching Patch Adams when I heard the opening lines of Dante: “In the middle of the journey of our life I found myself within a dark wood where the straight way was lost.” That sentence stopped me because it described exactly where I was. At that point, I hadn’t just lost my direction…I had lost myself.

As I began reading Dante, I realized the journey through the circles wasn’t just about punishment. It was a journey of self-confrontation. Every circle exposed a different distortion of the human heart, and I began seeing reflections of my own struggles. It forced me to ask hard questions about who I had become, who God created me to be, and what needed to change.

Deep down, I also knew God had called me to live differently—to live better and do better. But for a long time, I resisted that calling. I wanted to build my own life on my own terms, away from the responsibility that comes with living publicly for Christ. Looking back, I wasn’t just running from God’s purpose; I was running from the person He was calling me to become. Writing I Am My Biggest Stranger became part of my surrender to that calling.

Of course, as a Christian, my destination is very different from Dante’s. Inferno became a mirror, not my theology. My hope wasn’t found in escaping circles of hell but in the redeeming work of Jesus Christ. That’s why the book doesn’t end in darkness, it ends with renewal, purpose, and hope.

I think many people know what it’s like to wake up one day and feel like they’ve become strangers to themselves. If Dante’s journey gave me a language to describe that experience, then my prayer is that my story helps readers discover that, through Christ, they don’t have to remain there.

You write candidly about loss, your car accident, and feeling like a stranger to yourself. How difficult was it to revisit those experiences while writing the book?

Surprisingly, for most of the book, it wasn’t that difficult.

I think that’s one of the signs that you’re truly healed. When you’re genuinely healed from something, going back to those memories doesn’t break you anymore. You’re not reliving the pain, you’re remembering the journey.

By the time I wrote most of the book, I wasn’t writing from an open wound. I was writing from a scar. I could look back with gratitude instead of bitterness because I could finally see how God had been working even when I couldn’t see Him.

There was one section, though, that was different. The section about Linda was written while I was still processing everything. Those emotions were much more immediate, and I think readers can probably sense that. Looking back now, I realize that writing those pages became part of my healing.

That’s one of the beautiful things about writing. Sometimes you’re telling the story of where you’ve been, and sometimes you’re living it as you write. I Am My Biggest Stranger ended up being both.

Healing doesn’t mean you forget your past. It means your past no longer has the power to control your present. That’s the place I was writing from for most of the book, and I hope readers come away believing that kind of healing is possible for them too.

Faith is central to the book, but you also emphasize personal responsibility and intentional change. How do you see the relationship between God’s work in our lives and our own choices?

I don’t believe it’s either God or us. I believe it’s both.

The Bible is clear that we’re saved by grace, not by works. We could never earn our salvation. But after we’re saved, God calls us to participate in the work He’s is doing in our lives.

Too often we pray for God to change our lives while refusing to change our habits. We ask Him for purpose but ignore obedience. We ask Him to remove giants while continuing to feed them.

God gives us the strength, the wisdom, and the grace, but He also gives us a choice. Every day we decide whether we’re going to forgive or hold on to bitterness, pursue holiness or compromise, trust Him or rely on ourselves. Those choices shape the people we’re becoming.

One of the biggest lessons I learned is that God rarely does for us what He has already equipped us to do. He’ll open the door, but we still have to walk through it. He’ll call us to a better life, but we have to answer that call.

That doesn’t mean it’s easy. For me, most days are a struggle. The Apostle Paul wrote that “the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” I think every Christian understands that tension. Every day—and sometimes every minute—we’re faced with a choice.

Will I trust what God has for me? Do I really believe His way is better than my own? Or will I retreat into the shadows of comfort because I’ve forgotten who God says I am?

That’s the battle. It’s not fought once at salvation. It’s fought every day.

We must make that choice daily.

If you could speak to the younger version of yourself standing in that “dark wood,” what would you tell him now? 

I’d tell him to keep walking.

I’d tell him that one day he’ll realize God never abandoned him, even when it felt like He was silent. Some of God’s greatest work happens in seasons we don’t understand until years later.

I’d tell him to stop measuring his worth by what other people think of him. The approval he was chasing was never going to heal what only God could.

I’d also tell him something he probably wouldn’t expect: the man talking to him doesn’t have all the answers. I still struggle. I’m still growing. I’m still learning what it means to deny myself, follow Christ, and become a better version of the man God created me to be.

But I can tell him this with confidence: nothing he’s going through will be wasted. Every victory, every failure, every heartbreak, every setback, and every blessing will be used by God for His purposes. Looking back, I can see that God wasn’t just preparing me for what He wanted me to do—He was showing me who I was becoming all along.

One day he’ll discover that God often allows us to walk through impossible seasons not to prove how weak we are, but to reveal what He can do through a life surrendered to Him. The calling God has on his life is greater than he can imagine, and every step through that dark wood is preparing him for it.

So I’d simply tell him: keep walking. God isn’t finished with you yet.

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