Echoes of a Restless Heart: My Journey in the Shadow of Saint Augustine

A Life in Parallel

The more I read about Saint Augustine, the more I see my own reflection staring back from the pages of history. Born in 354 AD in Roman North Africa, Augustine was a man torn between worlds—pagan upbringing, Christian mother, intellectual glory, Manichaeism, and a long, anguished entanglement with the female flesh. His Confessions open with a boyhood theft: pears stolen not from hunger, but from the sheer thrill of sin. “I loved the evil in the deed,” he admits, “and the pleasure was in the wickedness itself.”

I know that thrill.

At four or five years old, I stole candy from the Piggly Wiggly in Rainbow City, Alabama. Not a pear, but a handful of Now and Laters—sticky, neon squares that promised sweetness without cost. I slipped them into my pocket while Mama Nanny turned to the canned goods. The cashier never saw. But God did. And so did Mama Nanny, Denson, and Jimmy Denson when I got home.

They whipped me for it—three generations of Southern justice in one switch from the backyard hickory bush. I cried not from the sting, but from the shame of being known. Like Augustine, I didn’t need the candy. I needed the rebellion. And like him, I got caught—not by guards, but by love wearing work boots and a scowl.

That early memory lodged deep: sin feels free until the switch falls. Grace feels harsh until you realize it’s the only thing that keeps you from becoming the thief forever.

Years later, I chased bigger thefts—time, affection, dignity—always justifying, always hollow. I was highly attracted to the female flesh, beauty as battlefield, desire as tyrant. Relationships stacked and collapsed. I rationalized it all with modern slogans while the mornings after echoed the same old shame.

Then came the chalked valve—heart calcified from neglect, surgeons replacing what pride had ruined. Desire didn’t die; it was disciplined. But the final conversion waited for December.

The Night the Furniture Found a New Home – and the Prayer in Patrick’s Truck

Hurricane Helene tore through Western North Carolina and Northeast Tennessee in September 2024. I was already neck-deep in service, though not from any church pew. I’m the chief bottle washer of the Lettermen of the USA—a scrappy nonprofit of former college athletes and coaches, rivals turned brothers in the trenches of mercy. For years, we furnished homes for homeless veterans—collecting beds, dressers, tables from generous folks in Homewood, Vestavia Hills, Mountain Brook, and Hoover, staging it all in a 1,500-square-foot warehouse.

But by late 2024, reality hit. Volunteer manpower had dwindled. The same guys who once showed up every Saturday were burned out, aging, or pulled in new directions. We couldn’t sustain the pace. No government program forced our hand—this was internal: a hard look in the mirror and a harder question: Can we keep doing this with the hands we have?

The answer was no.

We had to pivot—or perish.

Then came Patrick, a contact in Northeast Tennessee. No title, no sermon—just a quiet voice on the phone:

“We’ve got veterans up here in the mountains—lost everything in the flood. Sleeping on concrete. You got anything left?”

I did. 1,500 square feet of it—stacked high, gathering dust, waiting for a mission we could no longer fulfill the old way.

We made the call: divert everything to the mountains. For veterans—men and women who’d served their country, now displaced by Helene’s wrath. Three trucks, Lettermen in sweat-stained jerseys and local Birmingham veterans , hauling sofas like linebackers blocking for the vulnerable. Destination: a Methodist church in Jonesborough, Tennessee, turned distribution hub. (I’m not Methodist—never was. Just a man with a warehouse and a conscience.)

We unloaded until dark. My back screamed. My doubts whispered: Was this the right pivot? Did we abandon our calling—or finally obey it?

Patrick drove me to the Hampton Inn in Jonesborough after we finished. On the short ride—maybe ten minutes, headlights cutting through the cold December night—I stared out the window and prayed quietly, under my breath:

“Lord, did I make the right decision? The right call? Diverting items for veterans in Alabama to the mountains of Northeast Tennessee—was this You, or just me?”

No answer came in the truck.

Patrick dropped me off with a nod and a “See you tomorrow.”

I walked into a room I’d never been in before. Door clicked. TV already on.

It’s a Wonderful Life.

Not the ending. Not the beginning. The exact moment George Bailey stands on the bridge, broken, praying in the snow—asking if his life mattered.

I dropped my keys.

The remote was on the dresser. No one had touched it. Housekeeping doesn’t queue classics at 9:15 p.m.

But there it was.

Sometimes God answers in very small ways.

I sat on the edge of the Hampton Inn bed and wept—not from the movie, but from the message. The furniture wasn’t abandoned. It was redeemed. The Lettermen didn’t lose their mission—we refocused it on the very people we’d always served: veterans. Only now, they were in the mountains, not the cities. Patrick didn’t just drive me to a hotel—he drove me to a moment of clarity.

That night, the warehouse boss became a convert. Not with lightning. With a television left on and a black-and-white angel earning his wings.

The Convert as Hero – Completed

Augustine stole pears. I stole candy.

He heard “tolle lege.” I heard “Every time a bell rings…”

He sent away a lover in sorrow. I sent away a program in surrender.

We both got whipped—by conscience, by grace, by love that refused to let us stay small.

Closing Reflection

Augustine began chasing wickedness, women, and wisdom—and ended chasing God.

I began chasing candy, conquest, and control—and ended emptying a warehouse for veterans in the mountains, driven by a man named Patrick to a Hampton Inn where faith finally caught up with me.

He wrote, “Late have I loved you, beauty ever ancient, ever new.”

I live it—late, scarred, switch-marked, valve-replaced, manpower-lean, mountain-bound, hotel-room-humbled.

The restless heart finally rests.

The thief finally returns what was never his to keep.

And the long road home—from Piggly Wiggly to a Hampton Inn in Jonesborough, Tennessee—was guided all along.

Every time I see a hickory bush, I remember the switch.

Every time I see a veteran’s sofa in a mountain trailer, I remember the pivot.

Every time the bell rings, I remember:

God answers.

Sometimes in very small ways.

I was highly attracted to the female flesh, beauty as battlefield, desire as tyrant.

Years later, I chased bigger thefts—time, affection, dignity—always justifying, always hollow. I was highly attracted to the female flesh, beauty as battlefield, desire as tyrant. Relationships stacked and collapsed. I rationalized it all with modern slogans while the mornings after echoed the same old shame.

Hurricane Helene tore through Western North Carolina and Northeast Tennessee in September 2024.

Lettermen of the USA’s wear house

Three trucks, Lettermen in sweat-stained jerseys and local Birmingham veterans , hauling sofas like linebackers blocking for the vulnerable. Destination: a Methodist church in Jonesborough, Tennessee, turned distribution hub.

I’m the chief bottle washer of the Lettermen of the USA—a scrappy nonprofit of former college athletes and coaches, rivals turned brothers in the trenches of mercy.

I walked into a room I’d never been in before. Door clicked. TV already on. It’s a Wonderful Life. Not the ending. Not the beginning. The exact moment George Bailey stands on the bridge, broken, praying in the snow—asking if his life mattered.

Augustine began chasing wickedness, women, and wisdom—and ended chasing God. I began chasing candy, conquest, and control—and ended emptying a warehouse for veterans in the mountains, driven by a man named Patrick to a Hampton Inn where faith finally caught up with me.