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I Would Sit on the Hillside and Listen to Jesus
If I could go back and witness any event in history, I would not choose the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the first steps on the moon, or the coronation of a monarch. I would travel to an unnamed hillside in Galilee and take my place among the crowd as Jesus taught what we…
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The Best Restaurant in My City
If someone asked me to name the best restaurant in my city, I could recommend a fashionable bistro, an elegant steakhouse, or one of those hidden neighborhood places everyone guards like a secret. But lately, the best restaurant in my city is much closer to home. It is called Casa Grachek. Reservations are never required.…
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You Finally Became Yourself
If my future self could send me one sentence, I hope it would say: “You finally became yourself, and it was worth everything it took to get there.” I could ask my future self whether I became successful. I could ask whether my books were published, whether SŌL became everything I dreamed it might become,…
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The Subject That Could Change the World
If I could add one subject to every school curriculum, it would not be another language, an advanced technology course, or a lesson in personal finance—although all of those have value. I would teach kindness. Not kindness as a slogan printed on a classroom wall. Not kindness reduced to holding a door open, sharing crayons,…
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The Cost of Being Myself
I used to worry constantly about what would happen if people ever saw the whole of me. For much of my life, I believed love depended upon my ability to remain recognizable to others. I could be loved as long as I stayed within the boundaries people had drawn around me—as long as I played…
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Does Everything Happen for a Reason?
People ask the question as if they’re offering a warm blanket. “Do you think everything happens for a reason?” I understand why they ask it. We all want the universe to make sense. We want pain to fit neatly into a story whose ending redeems every ugly chapter. We want to believe that if we…
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A Promise Kept
People often ask what promise I’ve made to myself that I’ve actually kept. It isn’t one of the usual promises. It wasn’t to lose weight, save more money, exercise every day, or finally organize the garage. I’ve made all of those promises at one time or another, and like most people, I’ve kept some better…
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The Glove
I did not buy the glove with money. I bought it with patience. That is what nobody tells you about S&H Green Stamps. The store did not feel like a store. It felt like a vault of things you had already half earned. You walked in with a book, or two, or three, pages heavy…
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If I Could Erase One Trend from History
There are plenty of trends I wouldn’t mind seeing disappear from history. Bell-bottoms. Avocado-colored appliances. Eight-track tapes that always seemed to eat themselves at the worst possible moment. Those make for fun conversations. But if I’m honest, there is only one trend I would truly erase. I would erase humanity’s habit of deciding that some…
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The Sequel I Wish Existed: Kitchen Confidential, Twenty Years Later
I can confidently say that I would love to read a sequel to the Bible. The writing prompt was: “What book deserves a sequel?” I can’t use the word “deserve” when I talk about a sequel to the Bible. I would love to know what happens next, but I don’t deserve that kind of knowledge.…
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In Defense of Curiosity
“It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things out.” — Proverbs 25:2 There are many proverbs in Scripture that have shaped my life with wisdom, compassion, and truth. Proverbs 25:2 is not one of them. In fact, if I were asked to name a proverb…
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Strength is Not the Absence of Fear
Strength did not arrive in my life like a trumpet blast.It arrived quietly. Slowly. Almost invisibly at first. I think one of the moments that made me realize I was stronger than I thought was not when I stood in a pulpit preaching, or when I led churches through conflict, or even when I survived…
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The Fear of Loneliness
There are many fears that shape a human life. Fear of failure. Fear of death. Fear of rejection. Fear of losing control. Yet beneath nearly all of them, I believe there is a deeper fear quietly waiting underneath the surface: the fear of being alone. Not simply physically alone. Many people sit in crowded rooms…
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The Gospel is Not Fragile
The question of whether the gospel includes the LGBTQ community is not, at its core, a question about sexuality. It is a question about the nature of God, the scope of grace, and the meaning of the good news itself. If the gospel is truly good news, it must be good news for all people,…
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My Future Self
There was a time when the future felt like something I had to earn. As if one more year of doing the right things, saying the right things, being the right version of myself would finally grant me permission to arrive. I lived as though truth were a destination out ahead of me, somewhere just…
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Adapted to COVID
I did not adapt all at once. I adapted slowly, pastorally, and often while grieving. When the COVID-19 pandemic began, it did not arrive as a single disruption. It came as a series of losses. Sanctuaries went quiet. Hospital rooms became inaccessible. Funerals were reduced to a handful of masked faces standing far apart, trying…
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Authentically Unique
What makes a person unique is not found in a single trait, talent, or story, but in the deeply personal way all of those elements come together over time. Uniqueness is not something we achieve as much as it is something we uncover. It is shaped by experience, refined by struggle, and revealed most clearly…
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The Grief of an Imagined Future
No one tells you that coming out can feel like a funeral.Not because you regret the truth, but because the future you once pictured quietly in your heart has suddenly disappeared—an entire imagined life you carried for years, maybe decades, fading away before your eyes. For so long, I lived inside a daydream stitched together…
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When Coming Out Hurts More Than Hiding
For decades, the story around coming out has focused on liberation, freedom, and the happiness of living authentically. Pride campaigns display smiling faces, supportive families, and rainbow flags flying proudly. “It Gets Better” became a rallying cry, a promise to those still hiding that stepping into the light would bring relief and joy. But what…
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To the One I Am Learning to Love
I used to think love was something waiting for me in another’s hands,a gift wrapped in someone else’s approval,a tender look across a crowded room,a whisper at midnight telling me I was enough.I thought love would arrive dressed in someone else’s voice,carrying me away from my own silence.But here I am,after all the years of…
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To The Companion I Never Chose
You have been my most faithful companion.Not the one I prayed for.Not the one I wanted.But the one who keeps showing up anyway,uninvited,unapologetic,unyielding. You are with me when the room is full.When the laughter rises.When glasses are lifted, and plates are passed,and conversations hum like fluorescent lights buzzing overhead.You arrive then, when I am surrounded.You…
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A Fleeting Moment of Hope
In the depths of the closet, the constant thought of suicide was a shadow that never quite left, a whisper that echoed through the darkest corners of my mind. For me, this thought was a relentless companion, a seductive escape from the pain and fear that came with living a life that felt like a…
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To the Day I Stopped Pretending I Was Okay
I remember you.Not the exact date on a calendar, but the feeling—like something inside me gave way.Like the scaffolding I had built to hold everything togetherjust… buckled. I had been holding so much for so long.The grief.The fear.The shame.The exhaustion of smiling through pain,of showing up for others while disappearing inside myself. I wore “okay”…
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To A Life Built on Expectations
Before I ever spoke my truth, I memorized theirs. I was born into a world that handed me a script before I could read. The lines were already underlined, the stage already set:Be strong.Be successful.Be normal.Be straight.Be a man. And I—ever the good student—did everything I could to meet them. There was no room for…
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To the Camera That Helped Me See Beauty
You were just an object.Metal.Glass.Plastic.Buttons and dials.A tool made for capturing light. But to me,you became more than a tool.You became a companion.You became a teacher.You became a lifeline. I picked you up in a seasonwhen I was drowning.When the weight of my own thoughtspressed too heavy on my chest.When I could not find a…
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To My Past Self, Who Thought This Would Never Happen
EXCERPT FROM MY BOOK:Love, Me: Letters I Wrote When I Wanted to Disappear Oh, sweetheart.You had no idea, did you? You believed if you just did everything right—if you stayed quiet, stayed useful, stayed small—you’d be safe.You thought faithfulness guaranteed protection.That God would step in.That love would win.That if you were good enough, obedient enough,…
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What’s the Point?
Yes, what is the bloody point? It’s a question that has haunted me in both quiet moments and in the chaos of loss, transition, and despair. It’s the question that emerges when everything I’ve built begins to crumble, when the masks I’ve worn no longer fit, when the life I thought I had no longer…
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“Whatever”
Coming out of the closet wasn’t a moment. It was a lifetime. A thousand nights staring at the ceiling. Years of smiles that didn’t reach the heart. A marriage built on hope that maybe the feeling would pass. Children who saw only pieces of a person—never the whole. The closet wasn’t just a place. It…
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The Crown
How Will My Brothers and Sister Compete Once Our Mother Dies and There Is No More Favoritism to Be Gained? Our mother’s love has always felt like a battlefield. Not the warm, unconditional kind, but one measured out in doses—earned through obedience and withheld when we dissent. Each of us, her children, has learned to…
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The Joy of Living
There is a particular kind of joy that cannot be faked, forced, or fabricated—the joy that comes from living authentically. It’s a joy that rises from the soul, not dependent on circumstances or applause, but on the quiet, powerful truth of being who I truly am. For years, I lived behind a mask, playing roles…
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To Leave a Legacy
Legacy is not about monuments or money. It is not merely etched in buildings bearing our names or in bank accounts left to heirs. Legacy is the invisible, enduring imprint we leave on the hearts of others, the values we embody, the love we share, and the courage we demonstrate in our brief time on…
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Approval, Identity, and Coming Home to Myself
There is a particular kind of grief that comes from betraying yourself every day and being rewarded for it. When the world celebrates your mask, you start to believe that the truth of who you are must be monstrous. So you keep hiding. You keep achieving. You keep smiling through the pain. And yet, with…
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When the Words Won’t Come
When crisis strikes a family, like the sudden and life-altering moment when my mother had a stroke, the assumption is that it will bring people closer. The idea is almost romantic: siblings rushing to each other’s sides, comforting one another, rallying around the parent who once raised them. But in my experience, that’s not what…
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“Why Physical Transition?”
The question for me was startling because I had never been asked it in search of my answer. I have been asked in an open-ended way, with a “what are you thinking” mentality, which would require me to explain why I would diverge from my decades-long norm, but I would actually be interested in how…
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What Gives Me Direction
For a long time, I lived my life by other people’s maps—carefully drawn lines of who I was supposed to be. I followed them dutifully, out of love, out of fear, out of habit. I was good at it. I knew how to show up, how to serve, how to be the version of myself…
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Why?
I feel like I’ve lived my life in this exhausting, merciless cycle—closeted, then open, and now back in again. I stepped out; I swear it was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. Life, I imagined, would be different. Finally, breathe free air, only now being shoved back into that stifling, airless place. I…
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This Morning
This morning, I found myself tucked into a corner seat at a Starbucks, the hum of life unfolding all around me. There’s something about this ritual—the smell of roasted coffee beans mingling with the gentle clatter of ceramic mugs and the low murmur of conversation—that settles me into my skin. It’s not merely the coffee…
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“I Remember When…” — A Reflection from the Sanctuary
I remember when every pew knew the weight of a worshiper.When laughter from children echoed against my rafters, and the harmonies of hymns swelled so boldly they pressed against my stained glass windows like sunlight. Now, the echoes linger longer. I’m just the sanctuary, the old heart of this church. But I’ve seen it all—weddings…
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I Wasn’t Born Yesterday
“I didn’t just survive. I became. And I’m still becoming.” 🌿 I Wasn’t Born Yesterday I was born again… at fifty-eight. But the world only sees what’s new — the name, the hair, the linen clothes, the long-overdue freedom. What they don’t see — unless I tell them — is what it took to get…
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The Joy of It All
For years, depression had been my shadow, an unwelcome companion that clung to me no matter where I went. It whispered doubts in my ear, drained the color from my world, and wrapped itself around my chest so tightly that breathing felt like a laborious task. I learned to carry it, to mask it with…
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The Moment Everything Changed
It began with a phone call. Or perhaps an email. Honestly, I can’t even recall which, because the moment I saw the words—the confirmation, the dream, the prayer finally answered—everything else faded into the background. For a few seconds, I just stared. My mind struggled to catch up, to grasp what was right in front…
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The Weight of Silence
Hello darkness, my old friendI’ve come to talk with you againBecause a vision softly creepingLeft its seeds while I was sleepingAnd the vision that was planted in my brainStill remainsWithin the sound of silence– Sound of Silence by Simon and Garfunkel As I prepared dinner tonight, I listened to a special version of Simon and…
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The Greatest Gift Beyond Love
I have finally learned to embrace every twist and turn of my evolving self; I often think of the intangible gifts that truly matter. Love for who I am is undoubtedly a cornerstone—an anchor that keeps me steady in the winds of change. Yet, beyond love, there is a gift that holds equal, if not…
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Happiness is…
The sun breaks through the curtains, brushing my face with its soft, golden light. Mornings like this bring me joy—a quiet moment before the world starts buzzing. I sit in bed, stretch, and glance at the stereo seated near the wall. It’s been my companion for years. Some days, when the house is still open,…
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A Realization of Authenticity
The hardest decision I’ve ever made was coming out to my wife as transgender after decades of marriage. For years, I wrestled with the tension between the person I was on the outside and the truth I carried within. It was a profoundly personal journey shaped by faith, love, and the profound desire to be…
G R A C H E K
Dee Grachek is an author and Presbyterian pastor whose work explores faith, authenticity, identity, and hope through fiction, memoir, and spiritual writing.
Drawing on a life of ministry and personal transformation, Dee writes emotionally honest stories that invite readers to discover grace, courage, belonging, and the enduring power of unconditional love.
Dee is passionate about helping others find the courage to live authentically and discover a God whose love is wider than our fears, with writing marked by emotional honesty, theological depth, and an abiding conviction that every person’s story matters.