Finding Grace Through Music, Failure, Love, and Jesus
By Ray CF
Introduction
This story is about music, cookies, divorce, loneliness, friendship, failure, and grace.
It’s about the lies I believed about God and the lies I believed about myself. It’s about the truth Jesus patiently revealed over time.
For years, I thought faith was about earning. Trying harder. Being better. Failing quietly. Repeating the cycle.
I wrote songs while my heart was breaking. I worshiped while doubting. I loved imperfectly. I judged people God deeply loved.
And somehow, through all of it, Jesus never stopped pursuing me.
This isn’t written from a mountaintop. It’s written from scars, songs, mistakes, and mercy.
If you’ve ever felt too broken, too inconsistent, too far gone—
this story is for you.
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PART I: EARLY LESSONS IN LIFE
Chapter One: Crumbs
Growing up, I had a sweet tooth. I didn’t just want sweets—I needed them. If there was junk food in the house, it was all I could think about. Cookies were my greatest weakness. I often snuck into the cookie jar or tore open packages when no one was looking. Sometimes I got caught.
But this particular time, I pridefully thought I’d gotten away with it. I was about to learn what a crushed ego tasted like.
I was a young boy when Mom came home one day with a fresh bag of cookies. She looked me straight in the eyes and said, “Don’t touch.”
That only made it worse.
I had to get into that bag.
My plan was simple: wait until she fell asleep, then strike.
About an hour after dark, the house was silent. It was time. I slid out of bed and crept down the hallway. My eyes had adjusted to the darkness enough to make out a few feet ahead.
Hallway. Living room. Kitchen. Cookies.
The real challenge wasn’t Mom—it was the cockatiels.
Two of them sat in a cage near the kitchen entrance, surrounded by swings and bells. One flutter or chirp and my cover would be blown.
I slipped past the cage and saw the prize sitting on the counter. Before opening the bag, I reviewed my plan: open quietly, watch the birdcage, and have a story ready if Mom appeared.
Then the sugary smell hit me.
Oh yeah. I’m doing this.
I carefully opened the bag, but before I could stop myself, I attacked it. The birds exploded—wings flapping, bells clanging, chirps piercing the night.
I shoved cookies into my pajamas and bolted through the living room and down the hallway.
Then—BAM.
I slammed into a giant blue object and hit the wall.
The giant blue object was Mom in her robe.
“What are you doing?!” she yelled.
“I… got a drink,” I stammered.
The birds exploded again.
She sent me back to bed.
Mission accomplished.
Or so I thought.
I reached into my pajamas for the reward of victory.
Crumbs.
That night wasn’t really about cookies. It was about temptation. Sin always promises sweetness but often leaves you holding crumbs.
And yet even then, God was teaching me.
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Chapter Two: When Sound Became Shelter
At fourteen, I wanted a keyboard. That Christmas, my parents bought me one.
For its time, it was incredible. It could record five tracks. I had no lessons, no theory—just curiosity.
So I started creating songs. Layering sounds. Building worlds.
Music became something I made.
At eighteen, I moved in with a friend and we listened to music constantly.
There were plenty of air guitar moments, but pretending wasn’t enough for me.
One day I was driving to pay my car insurance when I passed a guitar shop. Something told me to pull in.
So I did.
I walked inside and saw a black GTX electric guitar package with cords and a Crate amp.
I wanted it badly.
There was just one problem—I only had money for my car insurance.
I remember thinking, I can drive without insurance for a couple months.
Not smart.
But honest.
That’s how I bought my first guitar.
Not long after that, faith entered my life through music.
A coworker named Johnny was starting a Christian band, and I auditioned. He played songs about Christ that felt deeply genuine and heartfelt. Something shifted in me while listening.
Then he asked me to play.
I only knew a few chords and felt completely unworthy to be there.
But I played anyway.
When I finished, he smiled and said, “You’re in.”
That changed everything.
We wrote songs, studied scripture, and prayed together. Our first band was called IRENE—peace without fear.
Then United States Air Force took Johnny away for several years, but our friendship never changed.
When he returned, we rented a house together, built a garage studio, created music, and eventually started another Christian band called noonday.
We intentionally kept the name lowercase as a reminder of humility.
Looking back now, I can see that God entered my life through music—and never left.
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PART II: BREAKING
Chapter Three: Bitter Sweet
I married a longtime girlfriend, and for a while I believed we’d build a life together. But over time, it became clear that we wanted different paths. Nearly five years later, our marriage ended in divorce.
There’s no clean way to tell a story like that. Even when things end without explosive drama, divorce still leaves behind grief, questions, and a deep sense of failure.
But out of that marriage came something beautiful.
My daughter, Rain.
She was—and still is—one of the greatest blessings of my life.
When she was a baby and toddler, I would sit with my guitar and sing to her. Sometimes I played real songs. Sometimes I made songs up on the spot. She didn’t care. She simply listened.
Those moments grounded me.
After the divorce, I moved into a trailer behind my grandfather’s house. It wasn’t much, but it gave me something I didn’t realize I needed—more time with my grandpa.
But that trailer also became a place of deep loneliness.
For nearly eight years, it was often just me, God, pain, and unanswered questions.
Rain stayed with me two nights a week, and I looked forward to those nights more than she probably realized. Of course I loved spending time with her, but if I’m being completely honest, I also just didn’t want to be alone.
Music never stopped during those years. noonday continued, and Johnny and I kept writing songs about faith.
That season taught me something I’ve never forgotten: joy and pain often live side by side.
That season was bitter sweet.
And holy.
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Chapter Four: Wrestling God
During those years, I felt like a failure.
I felt like I had failed in marriage, failed in faith, and failed at life.
I didn’t understand Jesus the way I do now, so I filled the gaps with my own thoughts—and my thoughts were brutal.
I believed God was punishing me.
I believed I deserved every painful thing happening in my life.
I worked at a warehouse for about five years and made good money, but depression eventually caught up with me. I lost that job and ended up returning to an old workplace.
That’s where I met Steve.
At first, I wanted nothing to do with him. He was vulgar with women, used rough language constantly, and always seemed angry.
I judged him quickly.
Then one day he walked up to me and asked:
“Are you that God guy?”
I still tear up when I think about that moment.
We became close friends. Over time, Steve gave his life to Christ, got sober, and hasn’t had a drink in over twenty years.
Today, he’s one of the best men I know.
At the same time, I spent countless nights in that trailer wrestling with darker thoughts.
Sometimes I wondered if God was even real.
I trusted my own thoughts more than God’s truth.
But even during those years—
He stayed.
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PART III: LOVE & RETURN
Chapter Five: Grace Gets Louder
Toward the end of my trailer years, I met Shasta.
We met in 2006 and started dating in 2007. She was an incredible woman—steady, kind, and grounded.
Spiritually, though, I was drifting.
For nearly ten years, I kept God at a distance because I was exhausted by false beliefs about faith.
Then about three years ago, everything changed.
It felt like a veil was lifted.
It felt like the lights came back on—but brighter than before.
For the first time, I wanted relationship with Jesus—not performance.
I became deeply hungry for scripture and listened to four or five sermons a day.
I spent a lot of time listening to Doug Batchelor and learning through Amazing Facts.
Later, I discovered Johnny Chang.
Different voices.
Same Jesus.
God wasn’t rebuilding my faith.
He was rebuilding me.
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Chapter Six: Love Holds Us
Shasta taught me love.
She taught me sacrifice, surrender, humility, and service.
At first, loving her felt easy.
What I underestimated was how difficult it would be to break old habits.
I let her down more times than I’d like to admit.
Then I made another mistake.
I put her on a pedestal.
In my mind, she seemed better than me.
Those thoughts grew into self-hatred and eventually resentment.
Faith exposed those lies.
Shasta didn’t need me to worship her.
She needed me to walk beside her.
Love stopped being about perfection and became about consistency, repentance, humility, and service.
She became one of the greatest tools God used to reshape me.
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PART IV: PURPOSE
Chapter Seven: From Ashes
That’s when I made a decision.
It wasn’t dramatic, and I didn’t announce it publicly.
I simply made a quiet decision in my heart:
I would only write faith-based music.
For most of my life, music had been my shelter.
It helped me process pain, loneliness, failure, and confusion.
But now music was becoming something different.
It was becoming obedience.
I wasn’t trying to chase fame or build a platform.
I simply wanted my music to point people toward Jesus.
That decision changed how I wrote.
Every lyric needed truth.
Every melody needed purpose.
Every song needed honesty.
I began realizing that God hadn’t wasted any of my pain.
My failures became lyrics.
My scars became verses.
My heartbreak became worship.
For years, I thought music was helping me survive.
Now I understood God had given me music to testify.
I wasn’t trying to become famous.
I was trying to become faithful.
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Chapter Eight: Halfway To You
For years, I tried to earn my salvation.
I lived in a constant cycle of sin, repentance, trying harder, failing again, and repeating it all over.
I genuinely believed holiness depended on me.
I thought I needed to meet God halfway.
But no matter how hard I tried, I never got there.
People often believe they’re good enough. They try to balance good deeds against failure.
Eventually, they realize perfection is impossible.
We can never get past halfway on our own.
Then I understood something life-changing:
Jesus never asked me to meet Him halfway.
He came all the way for me.
He accomplished what I never could.
He provided the holiness I could never earn.
He offered grace I could never deserve.
That truth changed everything.
Now I live knowing heaven reached for me first.
I used to live halfway.
Now I live held.
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PART V: THE MOVEMENT
Chapter Nine: NOT JUST US
For much of my life, I thought my story was about survival.
Then I thought it was about music.
Then rebuilding.
But God showed me something bigger.
This life was never meant to revolve around me—and it isn’t meant to revolve around you either.
The world teaches self-promotion, self-preservation, and self-worship.
Jesus teaches surrender, service, and love.
That realization became NOT JUST US.
Not as a brand.
Not as merchandise.
Not as attention.
As mission.
A mission to create music that points people to Jesus.
A mission to love people well.
A mission to remind people that life becomes richer when it stops revolving around self.
God first.
Others second.
Us last.
That’s freedom.
That’s purpose.
That’s NOT JUST US.
Halfway To You was never about reaching God halfway.
It was about discovering that Jesus came all the way for us.
