The Book I Needed Before I Wrote It

The next best thing to sending a book back in a time machine.

Today is May 1st.
It’s officially The Jacked Up Life release day.

And yes, that means it’s available on Amazon. And yes, I’m grateful—deeply grateful—for every one of you who’s picking up a copy today or sharing it with someone who needs it.

But this post isn’t about the book going out.
It’s about how it first had to go in.

Because long before The Jacked Up Life had a cover, a release date, or a chapter list—it was just me, sitting in the middle of a personal wreckage, wondering if grace could really hold the weight of what I’d broken.

And if I’m honest… I didn’t write this book as a polished expert with all the answers.
I wrote it because I needed it then and still need to be reminded of it.

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I Needed It When I Thought My Worst Day Was My Forever

There was a season in my life when shame wasn’t just a feeling—it was the narrator.
It told me what I deserved.
It told me what other people thought.
It told me I’d never be trusted again.
It told me even God might be tired of hearing from me.

And I believed it.

Not all at once.
But in those slow, suffocating ways that lies become wallpaper.

What I needed in that moment wasn’t another motivational quote or a checklist for rebuilding my reputation.
I needed someone to tell me what I later wrote in this book:

“Your failure is an event, not your identity.
The very fact that you feel broken is evidence you were made for wholeness.”

That line didn’t come from the part of me that had it together.
It came from the part that had to be lifted—jacked up, really—so that God could start pouring a new foundation underneath everything that had collapsed.

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I Didn’t Write The Jacked Up Life for People Who’ve Moved On

I wrote it for people still sitting in the debris.
People who are sitting with people in the debris.
People who haven’t figured out the next step.
People who are ashamed that the next step might be backward.
People who know the spiritual answers but can’t make them feel real anymore.

Maybe that’s you.
Maybe it’s someone you love.
Maybe it's both.

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What This Book Did to Me Before It Ever Helped Someone Else

Writing The Jacked Up Life wasn’t therapeutic.
It was disruptive.

It pulled me back into memories I’d rather avoid.
It made me look at the cracks I still hadn’t acknowledged.
It forced me to ask whether I really believed the gospel I preached—or if I just hoped other people did.

But over time, something started to happen.

What I feared would be a book of regret slowly became a book of resurrection.

Not because my circumstances changed overnight.
But because I remembered that God isn’t just in the restoration business.
He’s in the rebuilding-from-scratch-when-it’s-all-crumbling business.

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To Everyone Who's Reading This on May 1st

Thank you.

Seriously.

Thank you for caring enough to support this book on its first day in the world.
Thank you for supporting this new season of writing and speaking, after a recent weird and disorienting chapter of pastoral ministry.
Thank you for believing that God can still use stories that aren’t tidy—but instead have cracked corners, duct tape, with grace waiting to hold them together.

You are why I finished this book.

Not the platform.
Not the brand.
Not the algorithms.

You. The one who knows what it feels like to be jacked up.

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So yeah—today’s the release.
But for me, it feels less like a product launch and more like a note in a time machine sent back to my younger self.

And if even one person reads it and whispers, “This was the book I needed too,”—
Then May Day just became a miracle.

With gratitude and grace,
—Michael