It’s been almost seven years since I posted on here. Since then my family moved to Cumberland, Maine, to the town I grew up in. I started a hand-hewing business, turning logs into beams using only an axe. The work is therapeutic for me–nature is healing.

We attended a local community church, which, during the pandemic, met in the same church building where I had formerly been spiritually abused for 25 years. At times that felt hard for me. I gave myself grace to do church from home whenever I needed to.

And always I wrote. Teasing out the threads of my journey and my identical twin brother’s journey. Why he chose to leave our church and why I chose to stay. Eventually Nate and I decided to write a dual-narrative memoir. His chapters focus mostly on his combat tours in Iraq as a Marine infantry officer; mine describe our upbringing in the church.

Now, the story that took 14 years to write is finally published today. “Men of God Men of War” tells our story: the story of identical twins, raised in a fundamentalist Bible cult and torn apart through dissimilar choices. Both of us fought our own battles against unhinged leaders and traumatic circumstances, eventually reuniting at a critical time.

I pray it helps other souls who grew up in toxic faith environments. Or soldiers and Marines who faced combat and suffered wounds visible or invisible.

Available worldwide on Amazon.