A WORTHY JOURNEY THAT MATTERS (PREFACE)
This book is nothing short of inspired truth from all angles, and for that I acknowledge the grace of God above all else, for without that, neither this book, nor I, would be here.
PREFACE
What happens to the person who says “no thanks” to God after being told the reason they’re alive? In a sense, that’s what this entire book is about, saying no to God, and it’s also very much about what happens next.
I have the great privilege and motivation of getting to write this book. I’m doing something here that’s rarely done, which is constructing the preface and introduction before the content of the book is written or even outlined. I have no idea what’s to come or how raw it will eventually be. I am attempting to write the first draft of this book from start to finish in seven days - as instructed by God. Today is Tuesday, January 27th, 2026, and it was 8:08am when I first put fingers to keyboard. If all goes well, my final words will be signing off on February 4th by the end of business, which for me is usually around 5pm. There’s a weekend in-between I’ll use to be with my family.
I’m someone who has grown accustomed to watching and waiting on God, and that is such a time as this too. I didn’t always like waiting and watching, and sometimes now that I’m a father, waiting on God can be extra challenging because of the pressure that creeps in to be the breadwinner as well as available and present.
One of the funny things about life now, I have no idea what comes next from day to day, or even from moment to moment most of the time. Because life is no longer my own, sometimes what comes next is spontaneously delivered into your lap on the first night a child falls asleep on his own in weeks.
Last night, January 26th, my beautiful and equally exhausted wife Johanna, sat down across from me in the living room of our cozy townhome in northeastern Pennsylvania, finding we both could relax. And when I say relax, I mean the kind when you know your child is sleeping soundly, and we can go to bed together and put our heads down with ease and comfort. A night that just maybe won’t be broken up by fits and starts of crying noises coming from down the hall.
As we sat together and pondered silence and shared the feeling of taking multiple deep breaths with nothing to do but be with one another, I turned on Netflix and pulled up a television show I’ve grown to love as an adult, Touched by an Angel. I had a cursory knowledge of the show when it originally aired, mostly in a mocking fashion, but now I try to catch an episode or two whenever time before bed allows.
For some time, our son, Jeffrey Benjamin Wooldridge, Jibby for short, Jben to God or Mr. Jibbles to you, has been teething and fighting off one cold after another. It started in Early November on a family vacation where we all flew together for the first time. Fast forward to today where he’s had strep throat, ear infections multiple times, the flu, covid, a common cold or two, and hand-foot-and-mouth… all while at least 6 teeth popped through and his vocabulary and verbal skills in general went from advanced to speaking in sentences both declarative and humorous.
My time with J.B., another name we have for him, really starts in earnest once my wife puts him down for bed. For the last couple months, I’ve been heading upstairs within 20 minutes of her leaving his room, and that’s where my job of helping him fall asleep begins, lasting anywhere from thirty minutes to a couple hours. However, there are stretches I’m with him all night in the guest room because he won’t go back into his crib alone. I have come to love our time together, but it wasn’t always that way.
Over the last two months, I’ve been given several gifts from God regarding his nighttime routine and my part to play in it. The first was realizing that needing a good night’s sleep to be useful and high functioning the next day is a belief system. But let me preface that by saying, the fear of negative effects from lack of sleep the following day is where the lie resides, and one I would never have transcended were it not for the little Buddha unable to sleep by himself when he’s sick. I can’t speak for the person who doesn’t live every moment for God and has service as their driving factor, but I can go weeks without much sleep and not suffer negative effects on body and mind. If you don’t have God at the center of your life, I wouldn’t recommend taking my word for it, and this is my personal experience, you can have your own, but for me it has proven to be true.
The second thing over the last two months my son helped me learn, is while waiting for him to fall asleep or eventually having the need to move to the guest bed to sleep with me for the night, by waiting and watching thoughts arise without trying to change them, I found gratitude present during in-between moments of consciousness and physical desires to be somewhere else. The gratitude is found in the realization that were it to be my last night on earth, knowing I was going to die when the sun rose again the next day, I wouldn’t stop holding the baby God gave my wife and me. And in the same vein, I would also hold my wife and our two dogs, Riggins and Oliver. Every night, if you’re blessed to have a child or children, you get the gift of watching and waiting on God to show you something that can totally recontextualize life for you. If you don’t wait and watch, having kids is probably a lot tougher. If you have no desire to learn from another in the deepest ways possible, having children and being married are probably more than most people bargain for.
I’m sure it’ll come to light in this book to follow, but I never wanted children, a wife or a mortgage. Now, I have all of the above, plus two rescue dogs… one of which ate the garbage last night.
But back to the purpose and meaning of a preface, providing further information about how a book comes to be. To accomplish this goal, we need to draw another circle. In late October of 2025, I was supposed to be awarded the biggest contract of my life. The start date got pushed back to later November, and then got moved to December, then January, and now we’re almost in February, still without a clear starting line. And it’s right here in this pocket of uncertainty where we come to the start of this book, where watching and waiting became writing and praying, fasting and realizing.
I budgeted just enough money to move the family safely and easily through the holiday season and into the new year without issue, but I was waiting on a large sum of back-pay from a previous contract to arrive in December. It never came, and the cherry on top is I just found out it’s not coming at all. This has proven another miraculous moment-to-moment for me despite the financial strain, because it has given me the space for this book to come into existence. Within the same timeframe of the contract getting pushed back, I asked God what to do with the time in-between the original award date and the actual start-date for my boots to hit the ground. The answer I got had to do with finishing two other books which are now in pre-publication stages. I was also told to build a publishing company and prepare to launch one of those books named A LIFE WORTH LIVING in a way I haven’t before and with a budget far greater than money I currently have in the bank.
About a week before these words are being written, I had another inspired idea for a book come into awareness which I was researching and working on until last night, and when finished it will be another joy-filled addition to the catalogue of Fig Tree Publishing. The working title for that project is THE COST OF WINGS. I only put it in here now so later down the line I can see how multiple inspirations wove together into a larger miracle I’m only just starting to see grow. Nevertheless, the wife and I found ourselves watching tv last night, and like I said, it was an episode of Touched by an Angel. To be exact, it was episode twenty from season three, entitled “Amazing Grace: Part 2 (AKA The Wall: Part 2)”.
As an aside, this show, many times is filled with so much love it brings tears to my eyes, and if I ever get a chance to meet the writers, production staff, directors and/or actors who had a part to play in making the show, I can’t wait to thank them. Not only to thank them for the show but thank them for listening to a power greater than themselves and making the show despite whatever hurdles were part of getting it picked up and launched and then remaining on air for so many years. A major network show talking about angels and the miracles related to God’s power and timing will always remain few and far in-between. If our paths never cross, thank you. You have brought more love into the world than most who claim to speak for God.
In this episode, which was the second half of a two-parter, Monica, one of the angels and main cast members, loses her sight and depends on the help of another young man to be her eyes. These two find themselves in the inner-city of Denver within the confines of a strip mall with its new property manager, which in the beginning of the episode looked better off abandoned than the scene of future miracles. But in a funny way, that’s exactly the kind of places where God often shows up, in places which never look hospitable to miracles, nor the abundance of love as a noticeable possibility. Places where fear dominates and where hope appears in short supply are the best starts to stories many find hard to believe.
In this episode, a disheartened black man saves the life of two fearful white men who felt their presence there was jeopardized because of their skin color. The actor portraying the man who saved two people’s lives has a chance to give a speech during one of the final scenes, in which he utters the words, “A WORTHY LIFE THAT MATTERS.” Followed shortly by, “You can’t save the whole world at once. You have to change one life at a time.”
I sat on the sofa in tears, unable to speak, other than to ask my wife to text those lines to me as my phone was up in the bedroom. As these words rang through space and time and made their way directly to my heart it was likened to a wrecking ball of inspiration. Right then and there, God told me how to use the rest of the time before the contract starts. Apparently, I’m to write this book and tell the story of the twelve years I wallowed in darkness after saying “no” to God.
Initially, when I received the message about this book it scared me, fear arose, and it did so because the twelve years I was a slave to the world are filled with stories and moments I’d rather the world never know from a macro sense, but then again, it’s in places of fear that moments have a chance to present themselves as future miracles. I did things I was ashamed of even at the time I was doing them. I don’t carry the shame with me anymore, but I was hoping I’d never be asked to share them outside of one-on-ones and small group sessions. My initial fear was gone before writing these words because I walked through it without hesitation. I don’t know the outcome of this book or the effect it might have on someone who reads it, but it will impact someone’s life, and for that, I’m humbled by the calling to tell any story I’m asked to share. And it’s because I need to watch and wait to see what happens currently in my life, that out of a humble heart and an earnest request to serve God, this book is being written. It is out of gratitude for my wife and son that this book can be written. It is from the motivation of a television show’s words that it has a title, and it’s with deep gratitude for a life today which bears witness to the redemptive character arc of God’s will and grace that allows for a happy ending to start this story, and a long miracle taking shape regardless of the pain I brought to myself and others along the way.
The book to follow is unvarnished truth and will be written in a similar way to how you’ll read it, from one story to another, which I and you won’t know are to follow until they appear in front of our eyes.
I will not use real names in some instances, but the accuracy of the words will remain true to my subjective experience of the events unfolding from page to page. I will do my best to remain vague where others are concerned, but I do apologize if anyone who was part of my story recognizes their likeness here and takes offense with my experience of the moments recounted.
This book is not about excuses or passing blame for any of my actions and sins. It’s about forgiveness, for myself, for God, for the world, and for others to me. It’s to provide examples of where I was wrong, where paths deviated from truth and intersected with a higher will for this life, and how the road we choose to travel can look anything but prosperous when you say “no” to divinity and your life’s higher calling. You never have to say yes to God while here in this body, but when you say no, the consequences can be devastating. God doesn’t need your yeses to be God, God is without need, want, desire or predicament, you’re the one with the problems when you say “no,” not God.
In a way, what will follow is a memoir which looks at twelve years from a specific lens and then expands into other stories and lessons worth sharing that were only possible because of those twelve years. I’m glad it was only twelve years, because thirteen would have been one too many for this book to be a reality or for me to be here sharing it with you.
The last words to share about what’s to come before we start the actual book are perfectly synopsized in the hymn Amazing Grace found on the next page…
Amazing Grace! How sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch; like me!
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.
‘Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,
And grace my fears relieved;
How precious did that grace appear
The hour I first believed!
The Lord hath promised good to me,
His word my hope secures;
He will my shield and portion be
As long as life endures.
When we’ve been there ten thousand years,
Bright shining as the sun,
We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise
Than when we first begun.