The Night the Air Held Its Breath
This year, on November 26, I’ll mark forty years since my dad, Butch, took his own life. I was twelve years old.
The night it happened, my mother told me she sat in my bedroom. The air was thick and steamy, as if the atmosphere was holding its breath. She felt compelled to speak aloud into the stillness: “It’s okay to go home, Butch. She’ll be fine.”
Then she suddenly remembered that I was asleep in her bed. Startled, she ran down the hall to check on me. The room was quiet except for the low hum of the radio that I always slept with, tuned to the popular Top 40 station. But the song that she heard stopped her in her tracks. It wasn’t part of the usual playlist. It was “The Twelfth of Never” by Johnny Mathis – my parents’ wedding song, which by then was considered a classic. What a beautiful gift from the Lord, reminding my mother of His loving presence.
In the years that followed, my immediate family endured four more suicides and, later, a violent white-collar crime that targeted my grandfather two months after I was baptized in 2015 and continued until 2019. The perpetrators remain free, and the case remains unsolved.
These traumatic experiences, coupled with firsthand involvement in the aftermath of the Oklahoma City Bombing, have become the fuel for my life’s calling to serve in marginalized communities and in prisons across the U.S. These stories, which defined my “tough and can handle anything” identity for so long, continue to be replaced as I deepen my relationship with Jesus. But, I know now in hindsight that He was with me all along, even before I knew Him as my Savior.
In Healing Leadership Trauma, Nicholas and Sheila Wise Rowe remind us that unhealed pain never stays private. They speak from experience. For nearly a decade, the Rowes lived in Johannesburg, South Africa, during the final years of apartheid. Sheila ministered to homeless and abused women and children, while Nicholas worked in conflict resolution and reconciliation. “Whether we realize it or not,” he writes, “the truths of our experiences seep into how we lead, love, and relate to others, and especially how we relate to God.”[1]
The Rowes’ insights highlight that leadership is a posture of surrender, not control. They describe how trauma distorts attachment to God, to others, and to ourselves until it is named and healed.[2] For years, I led from what they might call survival mode. I kept showing up, producing, and performing as if nothing was wrong, but behind the façade, my world was quietly unraveling. While tending to my job raising funds to feed hungry children, I’d get calls from detectives asking for more evidence in my grandfather’s case. In an instant, I’d have to shift from stories of hope and full stomachs to the raw details of betrayal and loss before slipping back into my public smile. The emotional whiplash was brutal, and the mental fragmentation was exhausting. But at the time, survival meant staying in motion.
That pattern of hiding backstage truth is not unique. In a recent interview, CNN’s Anderson Cooper and documentary filmmaker Ken Burns discussed the power of confronting the past as a path to healing. Burns said, “The things that are most human are the things we least want to talk about.”[3] Cooper, who lost both parents and his brother, agreed that facing painful memories is the only way to loosen their hold on us, yet he admits he is still working on healing. Their exchange reflected quite well what the Rowes teach: that avoidance may protect us temporarily, but honesty restores us permanently. Healing comes not through erasing the past, but by allowing God to meet us in it.[4]
When I think of the men and women I now serve, many carrying their own buried trauma, I see their attempts to masquerade pain as strength. “Only the strong survive, right?” As leaders, our followers expect us to become experts at compartmentalizing to present the best version of ourselves while our inner world quietly crumbles. However, when leaders are willing to choose transparency over performance, something holy and remarkable happens. We begin to lead through our wounds, giving them purpose and meaning. It also gives others permission to release their masks, too. Authentic human connections can begin to form in new and transformative ways not previously experienced. The mystery of redemption is quite profound, isn’t it? The very same cracks that once defined our brokenness can become the openings through which God’s light shines when we surrender to truth and to Him.
In its truest sense, shalom is not the absence of pain but the presence of wholeness.[5] It is the moment when grief no longer controls the narrative, and divine, steady love takes the lead. That is where holistic healing leadership begins: when we face what once hung over our heads, threatening to destroy us, and discover that Christ has been there all along, gently rebuilding our lives from the inside out.
[1] Rowe, Nicholas. Healing Leadership Trauma: Finding Emotional Health and Helping Others Flourish. 1st ed. Westmont: InterVarsity Press, 2024.
[2] Ibid P. 57
[3] Cooper, Anderson. “The Half-Life of Grief Is Endless’: Ken Burns Talks Grief with Anderson Cooper.” News and Video. CNN All There Is. Last modified November 4, 2025. Accessed November 10, 2025. https://www.youtube.com/watch?si=7U4ybgbcSqxfFiE9&v=vluz9IuU010&feature=youtu.be.
[4] Rowe, Nicholas. Healing Leadership Trauma: Finding Emotional Health and Helping Others Flourish. 1st ed. Westmont: InterVarsity Press, 2024.
[5] Myers, Jeff. Understanding the Culture: A Survey of Social Engagement. Colorado Springs: David C. Cook, 2017.
About the Author
Jennifer Eckert
Operations and fundraising director, people connector, believer in second chances, fights poverty, supports justice reform, lives a life integrated with Matthew 25. I help people flourish through systems of empowerment.10 responses to “The Night the Air Held Its Breath”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Jennifer, thank you for sharing more of your story so openly. I am sorry for the losses you and your family have faced. You share “survival meant staying in motion.” This made me think about how often we stay in motion so as not to face the pain when we stop. As you have found healing through our Savior, what are practical ways that you stop and bring those painful moments to Him?
I once heard Tyler Perry refer to the pain of grief he had after the loss of his mother. He said he tried to drink it away, work it way, and lock it away. He goes on to say, “You know what? the pain just stood on the sidelines waiting for me to get done so it could step back in.”
I have shared pieces of this story, but never all of it in a written form and rarely at all outside of very small groups of trusted friends. This was a practice session for me.
God has been working on my heart and yesterday (Veteran’s day, my org was closed) I spent half a day at a mens prison. The way I communed with God was sharing this testimony (still sanitized to avoid triggers) but focusing on how God was with me all along – even when I didn’t realize it. What was so beautiful, Kari, was how many men lit up to share how God is actively healing their traumas.
The common thread was to name it aloud in prayer. Another practical step was to offer grace and kindness to reflect the heart of the Lord by using someone’s name when saying hello in the morning, or letting someone use the microwave first. Healing and communion with Christ happens in all these tiny – and often overlooked places/circumstances.
The next part of our journey will be the topic of forgiveness. So I guess the way I most often bring it to the Lord is through my actions to encourage folks in prison. I learn so much from many of them, and many are far more mature in their faith walk than I am. Sometimes it’s like I’m sitting and having a direct conversation with Jesus in a prisoner’s body, but I’m always mindful of boundaries and try to walk or speak with discernment.
Jennifer, thanks for your vulnerable post. I love how you connected the book to your own experience and also to Simon Walker’s work, even though it was implicit. The insight that leadership is about surrender, not control, is a powerful one.
How did your understanding of leadership shift as you moved from survival mode to a posture of surrender?What practices or relationships helped you begin to lead from a place of healing rather than performance?
Thank you, Graham. Honestly, moving from survival mode to surrender couldn’t happen until the dust began to settle from the case. Once it wasn’t part of my daily activities and conversations, I could finally sleep at night, which made surrender easier. I still don’t have it figured out, and even putting these things in a public blog was very challenging.
Therapy was not as helpful to me as spiritual direction has been because it has helped me create the habit of focusing on how God is using the grief for good, rather than focusing on myself and the hurt. Still, I have a lot more to learn after so many years of keeping it backstage. The layers of self-preservation peel away slowly, but they do peel away.
Thank you so much Jennifer for your honest and powerful post. How do you see Jesus modeling engagement with grief as a map for us as leaders?
Thank you, Ryan. I think about the close relationship between Jesus and Lazarus. He cried at his tomb, even knowing a resurrection was forthcoming. Christ’s willingness to show such tender emotion validates the pain felt onsite that day, and it validates for us that grief is not a weakness. In fact, to grieve means to have loved. Jimmy Kimmel once asked Stephen Colbert whether he considered grief and loss to be blessings, and Colbert replied that they were indeed blessings. He had been gifted the presence of someone special that he had lost. Even though their time together was short, that gift of a bit of time together far outweighed the sadness that came in the wake of the loss.
Dr. Eckert,
As I read your story, I kept thinking about how much we carry that others rarely see. Your phrase “emotional whiplash” really stood out—it names something so real about the way trauma can hit unexpectedly and unevenly.
With this week’s text in mind, I’m curious: which of the embodied spiritual practices—especially the SIFTing approach—felt most meaningful or grounding for you? And is there anything else that helps steady you in the healing process?
Thank you, Dr. Burns. I appreciated the authors’ affirmation to “Feel what you’re feeling.” For many years, I avoided any conversation about grief and loss, mainly because I wanted the world to see the “tough girl who could handle anything. ” There was a pride in having that reputation. But the SIFTing process gave me permission to call out what hurts without feeling shame. I now totally believe that feeling is not weakness; it’s the doorway to healing. And that healing is what allows me to lead more honestly, with less pressure to perform.
Hi Jennifer, Thank you for sharing your life with us. It hit me why The Gravity of Joy touched you so personally. The way you are bringing your vulnerability to the prison ministry is powerful, where you can relate to the hurts yet speak mindfully of boundaries and with discernment. The work you do is intense. How is your family able to support you?
My mother is my top supporter and always has been. The relationship she had with her mother was broken, so she was intentional in guiding me in love and support (and even when we argue). She is a bit of a superhero to me. We are often on the same wavelength, and she knows my heart even without words. She felt the pain of the losses, too. It was her ex-husband, her brother, his wife, and two other distant relatives who chose to end their lives. We openly discuss the hurdles of grief and we call out for each other some of the unhealthy ways we address or don’t address them.
My husband is also remarkable, but has not experienced nearly as much loss. That said, he has SUCH a healthy way of managing grief (including how he handled the estate matters when his dad died) that I am in awe seeing someone positively lead through sadness. He is a wonderful grief role model to both me and my mother.