A Father's Day Message — Unscripted

This Father's Day, I want to announce the launch of My Only Son Publishing, at MyOnlySon.com. I created it with one goal: to publish nineteen books, one for each year of my beloved son, Cash Gaudio's life.

I hope to inspire others through my failures — to show them how to avoid the extreme grief and self-induced punishment I brought on myself by not following the Lord. Each of these books is designed to be a short read, camouflaged for the world as self-help. But the real self-help, of course, is our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

You see, I was deeply enthralled in my own ego and arrogance — after my divorce, and honestly for most of my life — even when I appeared to be a leader in the church. Leading Dave Ramsey classes and Financial Peace. Helping start a Christian school. All the while I carried an evil, wicked heart of self-worship. I'll go as far as to say that after my divorce it became witchcraft: metaphysical manifesting, thinking only of the positive. And you know what — for the most part, it worked. I won't lie to you. Satan's snare is real. I thought I could have whatever I wanted and hurt whoever I wanted with no consequences. Being a womanizer, chasing endless lust — those are my sins.

I have prayed that for every person I caused to stumble by promoting my sin, God would grant me a hundredfold the influence to point people back toward Christ. I don't want to be the wicked servant who buried his talent in the ground. If we're keeping score for eternity, I'm at a severe negative. Heavenly Father, only You can do this — not by any action of my own. That has been the hardest thing to learn, and I'm still learning it, still struggling every day to let the Lord lead and to get myself out of the way. There is nothing I can do by my own power to bring a single soul to Christ. Only God can change a heart. All I have to do is listen, every day.

So instead of staying disobedient — refusing to post when the Lord tells me to, refusing to share the things He lays on my heart at 3 a.m. — I'm going to be bold. I held these things back so long because I wanted to empty myself first, to be sure I wasn't speaking out of ego. I've tested the Lord on this, and now I know: I couldn't care less about writing books or building a platform. I'm just trying to be obedient. That's it. The Holy Spirit is relentless — nagging, uncomfortable. And that's exactly how I know it's Him. It's never what I want to do. It's always what costs me.

I'm here to share my failures, because I know God will turn them into His glory and win more for His kingdom. I could die tomorrow and be at peace with that. As Ecclesiastes says, I have tasted all the forbidden fruits, and they bring no happiness, no peace, no contentment. Only daily communion with the Lord — and one day hearing the words well done, good and faithful servant — means anything to me anymore.

Why the Lord took Cash so early, I don't know. Why someone with such abundant faith, such influence, such empathy and heart for Christ. This world is unfair. The trauma I carry is hard to put into words. You turn on the TV and see his name, and the pain stabs straight through your heart. You wake at 2, 3, 4 a.m. and remember your son is no longer alive — that your line stops here. There will be no other sons of Micah Gaudio.

As I read through Deuteronomy and see how the Lord cut off so many for far less than what I've done, I've resolved to spend the rest of my life following Him — held by the assurance that I will be reunited with my son someday. That's how much it matters to me. I'm not saying God can't redeem me. I'm saying that every day I want to live as if I haven't earned a thing — not because my actions could ever redeem me, since I'm redeemed through Christ alone, but because my whole posture should be one of servanthood. And wherever I end up, I'm at peace. He is a fair and just God.

I often replay the days I laid my hands on Cash and prayed God would do great things through him — that my son would influence many people for Jesus and the kingdom. I wonder if those prayers were heard, and whether his short life was somehow bound up in them. I think of the time the Lord told me that if I helped start Smith Mountain Lake Christian Academy, I might lose my life — and I did it anyway, boldly, proud to be faithful through those years of tribulation. I've written a book about that, too.

Just last night I heard the news from Eastlake Church — many injured, and a man of God killed. I don't read it as Old Testament wrath, the way the earth once swallowed those who mocked God. But I do know this: Satan is free to roam this earth. A demon with a mission picked the house of my son and waited in that driveway to murder him in cold blood, because it knew the influence my son would carry. He was years beyond his age in wisdom — wiser than me, especially when it came to my anger. I wonder about the sins of the father falling on his house. My grandfather died in an accident at twenty-one. My step-grandfather's funeral fell on the very same day as my son's. Lord, how can one person endure this much grief?

And yet — He keeps me. I am spent. I don't sleep. I can barely hold a memory except what the Lord allows me to keep of my son. How am I supposed to serve Him in this condition? I don't know. But only the Lord gives me any comfort at all now. Following Him is the one thing left — and it turns out the one thing left is the only thing that was ever real.

So on this Father's Day, I announce the rededication of my life to serving God, whatever He asks of me. He has placed me in some ridiculous places no Christian should ever be. I'm not proud of that, but I pray He uses every bit of it for His glory.

And if you're reading this from inside your own wreckage — your own divorce, your own buried talents, your own private sin you're sure has put you past saving — hear me: it hasn't. I'm living proof that the man at a severe negative is exactly the one Christ came for. You don't have to clean yourself up first. You just have to turn around. He'll do the rest.

If you'd like to learn more or join the journey, you can find me at MyOnlySon.com.

I'll say it plainly: there's not an ounce of arrogance left in me. As we come up on the two-year anniversary, the grief is still overwhelming — his name on a screen, a small sudden memory of Cash, and I'm undone all over again. I think about how I could have been a better father, how I might have prevented it. But this is the Lord's plan, and I trust it.

My line may be cut off. But God is not finished with me — and He is not finished with you.

Your will be done, Lord.
Amen.