A Beautiful Place to Miss Home

Grateful and homesick at the same time — on Hawaiian sunsets, missing home, and feeling led toward rooms where people are rebuilding their lives.

There are evenings here in Hawaii when the sky makes it difficult to think about anything else.

The light settles over the water, turning everything gold for a few minutes before the colors deepen. The ocean keeps moving beneath it, carrying the last of the sun toward a horizon that seems farther away than it should.

I’ve always loved sunsets. I’m a hopeless romantic, so I suppose there was never much chance of me living here without falling a little in love with the place.

Hawaii is beautiful in a way that photographs can only introduce you to. There is something about the air, the changing light, the sheer presence of the ocean. You can look out at that much water and feel your own life become both very small and very precious.

I’m grateful I get to experience it.

And I miss home.

Sometimes those feelings arrive together. I’ll be looking at something extraordinary, wishing there were someone familiar beside me to see it. Someone I wouldn’t have to explain the moment to. We could just stand there, shoulder to shoulder, and let the evening happen.

That is one of the things distance teaches you: beauty becomes even more meaningful when you have someone to share it with.

When I think about home, I think about familiarity. The ease of being around people who know your voice. The comfort of showing up somewhere and feeling expected. A conversation that starts before you’ve even made it through the door.

I miss that feeling.

There are days when the miles feel manageable, and others when they seem to stretch themselves out across the entire ocean. On those days, even paradise can feel a long way from where you belong.

I’m learning to let myself be grateful and homesick at the same time.

Rooms I Want to Sing In

Living here has given me room to think about what comes next. Music has been a large part of that thinking, of course. So has the question of what I want my life to feel like when I’m actually living it, beyond the plans and announcements and things I hope to accomplish.

Lately, I keep coming back to connection.

I want to sing these songs in rooms where I can see people’s faces. I want to hear a laugh travel through an audience. I want to feel that small, electric moment when a song reaches someone and their expression changes.

I’m looking forward to performing again next year more than I can probably explain.

There is a particular kind of anticipation that comes with imagining the road ahead: the drive into a town, the quiet before a soundcheck, a microphone waiting under the lights. Then people begin to arrive, conversations fill the room, and the evening starts becoming something you couldn’t have created by yourself.

I miss being part of that.

Writing a song can be a solitary thing. You sit with a feeling long enough to find words for it. You work on a line, change it, come back to it. Eventually, something that once lived entirely inside you becomes a song another person can carry around in their own life.

Getting to stand in front of that person and sing it feels like the next part of the conversation.

A Feeling I Haven’t Been Able to Shake

But as I think about returning to the stage, there is another feeling I haven’t been able to shake.

I feel like I’m being led toward leading worship and speaking at recovery events.

Even writing that down makes me pause.

It feels personal, and a little vulnerable. I’m still finding the language for it. I keep feeling drawn toward rooms where people are trying to rebuild their lives, where honesty matters, where someone might arrive carrying a weight nobody else can see.

I think about what it would mean to bring music into those rooms. To speak openly. To offer something useful from the experiences that have shaped me, while also being willing to listen.

There is a tenderness to the idea that stays with me.

A person can spend a long time believing they have become the worst thing that ever happened to them, or the worst decision they ever made. I want my music to leave room for the life that comes afterward. The next morning. The next attempt. The possibility that there is still something good ahead.

That feeling is woven through Living Proof.

If you’re still breathing, there’s a way.

I want those words to have a life beyond a recording. I want to be present when someone needs to hear them.

Faith Is Part of My Voice

I don’t describe myself as a Christian artist. Some of my songs carry faith and hope very openly. Some have the kind of spirit that could belong in a room full of people singing together in worship.

Other songs go somewhere completely different.

There are love songs. There is heartbreak, longing, desire, and the complicated business of being human. Some songs are tender. Some have rougher edges. I want to keep making room for all of that, because all of it belongs to the life I’m trying to write honestly about.

Faith is part of my voice. So are the questions I’m still living with.

Right now, one of those questions is how all of this fits together.

How do I make room for worship and recovery events alongside regular tour dates? How do I build a schedule that allows me to follow this feeling while also making the practical side of performing work?

There are travel costs, calendars, commitments, and a lot of details still to figure out. A meaningful idea still has to find its way onto an actual itinerary.

I don’t have the whole plan yet.

I’m trying to pay attention before I rush to give it a name or turn it into an announcement. If this is something I’m being called toward, I want to approach it with care. I want to prepare well, show up honestly, and understand what I can offer.

For now, I know I’m looking forward to the music. To the people. To getting back into rooms where a song can become a shared experience.

And until then, I’m here in Hawaii, watching another evening settle over the water.

Still grateful.

Still missing home.

Still imagining the roads I’ll travel next year and the faces waiting somewhere along them.

I wish I could see farther into the future sometimes. I’d like to know how the dates will come together, where these songs will take me, and whether this feeling I’m carrying will grow into something I can finally understand.

But there is something beautiful about this part, too.

The hopeful part.

The part where the sun has almost disappeared, the air is still warm, and you find yourself thinking about everyone you hope to sing for — and everyone you hope to come home to.

Proof of Life