Life as a Pastor, Father, and Protector

By the time 2016 rolled into 2017, my life felt like several worlds spinning at once, each demanding attention, each carrying its own gravity. And I was standing right in the middle, trying to keep everything in orbit without letting anything crash into the other.

People imagine pastors as men who float through life with soft hands and clear answers. They don’t imagine the phone calls, the rent worries, the church budgets that don’t exist, the counseling sessions that run long, the spiritual warfare you’re convinced is coming for you the moment you step out in faith. They don’t see the way ministry bleeds into family life, or the way family life bleeds into ministry, until you can’t tell which wound belongs to which.

When we planted the church, I believed we were stepping into God’s calling. I still believe that. But I didn’t anticipate how heavy obedience could feel.

We were a small group—no building, no staff, no budget, just the belief that our neighborhood needed Jesus and that somehow we were the ones responsible for bringing Him there. We held Sunday gatherings in a community room, led an after-school tutoring program, and did whatever outreach we could piece together with time, prayer, and borrowed resources.

There was no salary.
Not for me. Not for anyone.
So to provide for my family of seven, I built websites on the side—late nights, early mornings, juggling deadlines the way some people juggle knives.

Five children under a single roof is a blessing, but blessings don’t subtract responsibility—they multiply it. And my children, each one, carried their own personality, their own needs, their own storms. Four were technically adults. One was on the edge of adulthood. All were at stages of life that required a father who was present, invested, attentive, wise.

And I was trying. God knows I was trying.

Between web development, preaching, counseling, planting a church, leading a small group, and pastoring families through crises, my life had become a long stretch of unbroken responsibility. I wasn’t drowning—but I was treading water with more weight strapped to me by the month.

The irony is that during this time, I thought the biggest threat to our small church was spiritual attack from outside—resistance, discouragement, maybe even conflict among leaders. I didn’t realize that quiet cracks were forming in places I wasn’t looking.

Even before we knew anything was deeply wrong, tension had already crept into our small group. The arrest of David shook us all, but even before that, we were stressed and stretched, our bonds thinning under the weight of ministry, parenting, and life.

And then there was my youngest daughter.

Of all my children, she was the most strong-willed—sharp-minded, quick-tongued, courageous in the way only a young adult can be. She debated everything: theology, curfews, work hours, the balance between serving God and living her life. She wasn’t rebellious for rebellion’s sake—she simply had more questions than answers and wasn’t afraid to demand clarity.

But sometime during this season, her behavior started to shift into something we couldn’t name. She was working constantly—multiple jobs, late nights, early mornings. At first, it looked like ambition. Then it looked like distraction. Then exhaustion. Then avoidance. And finally, it looked like something we couldn’t define but could feel like a tremor beneath our feet.

Later and later she would come home.
Midnight.
One.
Two.
Three.

By the time she began coming home at six in the morning, leaving again at seven, something inside me tightened in a way I couldn’t ignore anymore. I didn’t have the language for it then, but a father can feel when something is off in the soul of his child. And yet even then, I thought the problem was the work schedule, the long hours, the strain of being nineteen and trying to prove something to the world or to herself.

I didn’t know her world had already been shattered years before.
I didn’t know the late nights were less about work and more about escaping the silence of a house that held her pain.
I didn’t know that everything that looked like rebellion was actually fear’s shadow.

In those days, I was doing what I’d always done: trying to guide her with truth and love, trying to correct gently, trying to understand what I couldn’t see. I thought the problem was discipline. I thought the answer was conversation.

I didn’t know yet that her world had already been violated.
That the ground beneath her had collapsed long before I felt the tremors.

So I kept moving—teaching, preaching, working, parenting—believing I was holding everything together. Believing strength was the same as endurance. Believing leadership meant absorbing the weight quietly and faithfully.

Looking back now, I can see it clearly:
the church plant, the business, the ministry responsibilities, the small group tensions, the late-night drives, the fatherhood moments that felt more like battles, the pastoral calls that pulled me deeper into other people’s pain.

I was carrying the life of a pastor, the life of a father, the life of a protector.
And beneath it all, something inside my own home was cracking open.

But I didn’t know it yet.
Not fully.
Not in a way that would prepare me for what was coming.

If anything, I thought the hardest part of my life was already unfolding.
I thought the crisis was David.
I thought the weight I was carrying was simply ministry.
I thought endurance was the test God was giving me.

I had no idea the real storm hadn’t even arrived.

Not yet.

Faith in the Dark is Jesse Velez’s true story of enduring faith, costly obedience, and discovering God’s presence in seasons of grief and silence. Best to read the 12-Part Series in order: