The Check Engine Light That's Been On for Six Days RedeemedExistence daily devotional, October 13, 2026 The orange check engine light came on six days ago, somewhere between the school drop off and the highway on ramp, and I have driven past the shop on my street every single morning since without pulling in. The truck does not knock. It does not smell like anything burning. It starts every time I turn the key, runs smooth at seventy, gets me where I am going. The only thing wrong with it, as far as I can tell from the driver's seat, is that small orange light sitting there on the dash, and some mornings I think I would almost rather it start sputtering so I would have an excuse to finally deal with it. Instead it just sits there, patient and silent, reminding me every time I start the engine that something underneath the hood needs attention I keep deciding not to give it. I am four years sober, and I used to think anxiety would always look like the night before a cour...

The Garage Sale Sign I Took Down Before Noon RedeemedExistence daily devotional, October 12, 2026 I spent Friday night pricing things I was sure somebody would want, a computer desk, two bikes my kids outgrew years ago, a box of old VHS tapes. I had the tables out by seven Saturday morning, hand lettered signs taped to the stop sign at both ends of the street, coffee in hand, feeling the small, specific hope a man feels when he thinks he has planned a good morning. By eleven thirty, three cars had stopped, and two of those were just turning around in my driveway. By noon I was pulling my own signs back down, folding the tables, and carrying the computer desk back into the garage, feeling foolish for having hoped at all over a garage sale. It was never really about the desk or the ten dollars I would have gotten for it. It was about how quietly a small hope can collapse without announcing itself first. I am fifteen years sober, and for most of those years I assumed the disappoin...

The Second Toothbrush I Still Keep in the Cup by the Sink RedeemedExistence daily devotional, October 12, 2026 My wife has been gone three years now, not from this life, just from this house, and I still keep her toothbrush standing in the cup by the sink next to mine. I have replaced my own twice since she left. Hers has gone soft and yellow at the bristles, and I know exactly how foolish that looks to anyone who opens that cabinet besides me, but I have never once reached in and thrown it away. It is such a small thing to hold onto, a two dollar piece of plastic, and some nights it is the only proof left in the house that somebody else used to stand exactly where I am standing now. I am six years sober, and for a long time I told people the hardest part of getting clean was the shame. What nobody warned me about was the ache waiting on the other side of it, the one that shows up on a random Tuesday with nobody in the house to ask about my day, nobody's keys landing in the...