Fellow pilgrims,

I felt I had to change the term I addressed you with. I have been calling all of us rebels, but realized that is not as inviting as I would like it to be.

It’s a militant term, and I think pilgrim suits all of us much better. No matter our kith, kin, or creed we are all on some sort of journey.

As you have all been so kind to join me on mine, calling you fellow pilgrims feels right.

I hope you agree.

2025 was a wild ride.

I started a tree company after years of working in the industry on a part time basis.

The business successfully supported my family in its first year and my hope is that we are able to expand the business further in 2026.

My journey into self-employment began in 2024 after leaving the working world of employment behind.

The Lord has taken care of us every single step of the way since and we want for nothing. He truly is good.

Circumstances were such that a move into the tree business became a financial no-brainer.

Through His sovereign guidance, the Lord had given me a skillset that is highly marketable in the realm of home services.

It only made sense to use that skillset to take care of the needs of my family.

And boy did this topic used to be agonizingly discombobulating for me.

Which topic? Money. Providing for a family. Work in general.

Only recently have I realized that the sources of the confusion were pride and selfishness, both of which are openly encouraged in our current iteration of American culture.

Had I simply taken the biblical perspective on the topic as absolute, the confusion never would have swallowed me whole.

1 Timothy 5:8 - “But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.”

Despite the total clarity of this passage, and having a father who had pointed it out to me on multiple occasions, I struggled to figure out what I ought to do to provide for my family.

In His mercy, God has brought me to a new place of understanding.

Provision is my role. Period. The intricate details of how that occurs are not all that important and are extremely unique to the individual.

Proverbs 16:9 - “A man’s heart devises his way: but the Lord directs his steps.”

If my heart is in the proper position to follow after the Lord, and to love Him by obeying His instruction, the details will be ordered by Him.

On a practical level this means that I really don’t have much to worry about except for keeping my heart in proper submission to Him.

This has taken me years to understand, and what a relief it has been to my soul.

I am now a cheerful worker who is grateful to get to participate in the process of provision for my family.

What an honor to be a leader for a family and bear the responsibility of their care.

Being in this role makes me sincerely sad for the millions of men today that spend their time online seething about the state of things and how they have no future because of boomers and feminism.

Some of their points are entirely valid.

But what good does it do to spend all of one’s energy circling the drain of disappointment?

There is a point at which conversation about a topic becomes pointless, and action is the only healthy way forward.

I think we’ve arrived at that moment on a cultural level.

If these men who think they have identified the issues with our culture spent their time building lives that embodied the remedy (growing families and living quiet lives of honor), we would be much closer to a future that looks like the pre-feminist past to which they so often harken.

As for me, I praise God for His kindness and mercy toward me in my time of wandering.

He gently and constantly brought me back to Himself and paid me the ultimate kindness by taking off the gloves and allowing me to come face to face with who I was.

My rock bottom was a brutal wake up call of my own making in which the Lord met me and showed me the way out.

I am now living the dream.

Beautiful wife, great kids, a home I built with my own two hands, a business where I have no boss, and a life of quiet honor that is only possible because the Lord showed me the way.

I pray 2026 is the year this happens for others on a massive scale. Freedom for the captives of our sadistic, barbarous culture.

And I pray 2026 is a blessing for you and yours.

"May the road rise up to meet you, may the wind be always at your back, may the sun shine warm upon your face, the rains fall soft upon your fields, and until we meet again, may God hold you in the palm of His hand"

More soon,

John

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God bless.