Illuminating Truth: The Power of Honest Stories in a Dark World

The world can be a dark and dangerous place.

You don’t hear that from parents very often, especially godly ones. We tend to reach for softer phrases. We want to protect our kids. Wrap the world in padding. But truth has a way of pressing through.

As a father of three (barreling toward an empty nest with fear and trembling), I remember those years of bedtime stories—spinning tales of adventure and peril, where heroes triumphed and rode off into the sunset. Those were precious times. But something interesting kept happening. Almost like clockwork, my kids would turn and ask:

“Tell us a story about your life!”

At the end of a long day, I usually didn’t have the energy. But once I got going, sharing misadventures from my childhood in Arkansas, they were all in. Eyes wide. Listening like the story was the most fascinating thing they’d ever heard.

They wanted to know what it was like when I was a kid. Someone like them. They wanted to see themselves in the story. Whether they realized it or not, they were asking something deeper: Am I alone?

Isn’t that why we love stories? Why we read? Why we return again and again to the same books and characters that speak to something inside us? Because a great story doesn’t just entertain us—it tells the truth. The kind of truth that says the world is broken but beautiful. That there’s darkness, yes, but also wonder and light. The kind of truth that reminds us we’re not alone, and we’re not without hope.

In the stories that last, that linger in our hearts and minds, the characters feel real. They fight battles we recognize. They carry wounds we understand.

Frodo failed, but Sam was there to carry him.

And would the ring have ever been destroyed if Gollum hadn’t taken it back?

Life can get messy. It’s not always tied up in a perfect little bow. The sooner we accept that, the better. But here’s the beautiful part: God moves in the mess. He works in the dark. He blesses through our blunders.

And I say, Hallelujah for that!

My new book, The Sapphire Song, continues the story of the O’Ryan kids—Slugger, Flint, and Scout. After wielding the Sapphire Sword and saving Earth from pestilential darkness, they now search the stars for their missing mother.

But nothing goes as planned.

There is fear. There is failure. There is even betrayal.

Each sibling must face their own weakness. They’ll reach the end of themselves, but find that even in the chaos, light still shines. And hope may be closer than ever.

As an author, my deepest desire is that readers will find that same hope in their own lives. In the middle of pain, failure, or fear. When all seems lost. I want them to know there is still victory. To hear the song of God’s nearness and grace. To feel, even for a moment, the power of His unending love.

Yes, the world can be a dark and dangerous place.

But Jesus has overcome the world.

And the battle is already won.