John was a pastor, a husband, and a father-until the secret he'd spent a lifetime suppressing came crashing to the surface.

Raised in poverty and shaped by abuse, Wilson found refuge in the Pentecostal church, where holiness demanded obedience and salvation required surrender. But when his sexual orientation emerged at age twelve, he was thrust into an impossible war between a faith he couldn't abandon and a truth he couldn't change.

Believing that God would heal him if he stayed faithful, he married young, became a father, and rose to the pulpit-preaching a gospel that condemned the very core of who he was. A decade later, after removing his beloved brother from life support so he could die of AIDS, the foundation of Wilson's carefully constructed life collapsed.

The faith that once anchored him became a prison of shame and self-erasure. Telling his wife the truth shattered everything. He lost his marriage, his ministry, and the identity he'd spent a lifetime constructing. Cast out by the church he once served, he fled-and begged God to let him die.

But death never came. Instead, he began the slow, excruciating work of becoming who he truly was.