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 on the edge of my waterbed 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 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.
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