Craig Matthews
Craig ran away from his Michigan home at seventeen with his girlfriend. He had sold the love of his life on the romantic idea of living in the wild, wild west. So they wrote goodbye notes to all of their family and friends, packed the car and left on a sunny June afternoon with three hundred and fifty dollars between them.
God rudely interrupted the fanciful journey at a rest area west of Chicago with a one-in-a-million chance meeting. Craig walked through the entry door to the old facility at the same moment his cousin exited. Joe, who is twenty years older, just happened to be moving to Colorado that day with his family. Long story short, Joe appealed to their sense of family and encouraged them to call home before they continued westward.
That phone call wrecked the dream and saved their lives. Hearing your tough-as-nails father break down and cry for the first time in your life can do that. Plus his girlfriend's father had the State Police looking for them, she was sixteen.
Less than nine months later, that not-so-impressed father of his girlfriend was arm in arm with her, walking down the aisle. Dad reluctantly signed over his parental rights to the eighteen year old pimple faced kid that had impregnated his daughter.
There were only two people out of the fifty-six in attendance that day who believed the young idealistic couple had any chance to make it. They chose not to say one word about it. Craig discovered who that was almost forty years later while doing research for his first book.
Does this story make Craig qualified to be an author? Hell no. Neither does living forty-two years with the same women he married in high school and the three kids they raised (and seven grandchildren). It is only by the grace of God they have survived and through that same grace he writes. Yet, Craig’s true gift is in storytelling and many of those skills were learned the hard way, living through the myriad of life altering choices he has made over the years. Imagine that. Life happens.
Craig listens to people, striving to see them the way their Creator does, while asking pertinent questions along the way. Hearing stories of God’s kindness has been foundational to his journey, living one has transformed him. His pastor's heart motivates him to teach those that struggle with addictions. He leads small groups of men toward relational wholeness. Combine all of those experiences with a love for creating, an insane imagination, and you may begin to understand his story.
Craig wants to inspire you to live in the truth our loving God has for you today.
