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It started in December 2025, tucked away at a friend’s mountain cabin. Something shifted up there. The cold air, the stillness, the distance from ordinary life — looking back, I think that’s exactly where God planted the seed.
I felt led to write a book about hospitality. Sat down, started typing — and a few pages in,the whole thing quietly became something else entirely: a 7-lesson small group study. I didn’t plan that. I just followed where it went and came home from that trip with complete study in hand.
“Our Life Group has been going through it. They don’t even know I wrote it yet.”
That’s the part that still makes me smile. Watching people connect with material I wrote,seeing them grow through it, hearing the conversations it started — all without knowing the guy handing out the workbooks was the author. When that kind of confirmation lands, it lands hard.
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Then came the quiet-time nudges. Over the next few weeks, I felt God stirring again — this time toward a blog. Keep writing. Keep talking about hospitality. And here’s the thing I couldn’t shake: the tools felt different now. Like He’d been waiting to hand them to me at exactly the right moment.
I built a blog on a free platform, wrote half a dozen posts, set everything up, and sent it to a small circle of friends and colleagues for a preview. The feedback was warm and encouraging. Then my oldest son Ricky — who happens to be a digital architect for an online company — took one look at it and said, essentially: Dad,let me handle this.
Next thing I knew, I had my own domain name and a website that looks like a real professional built it. Because one did — my kid. Another unmistakable sign that Someone was stacking resources I never could have arranged on my own.
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Back in February, I spoke at the Texas Ministry Conference in Houston — my second year on the hospitality topic. Two full rooms. Seventy-five minutes each. The response was better than I could have hoped for. That one felt less like encouragement and more like a direct message: keep going.
Here’s what I haven’t told many people: even before I retired, there’s been this dream sitting in my chest for years. Write a book. Speak more. Maybe keynote someday.It felt big and a little embarrassing to say out loud. And now I’m watching it take shape — piece by piece, door by door — and honestly? It’s kind of humbling.
The last few weeks have been a blur in the best possible way. The small group study is polished and finished. The website is live. I have over a dozen blog articles queued up. My teaching session is updated. And over lunch recently, I shared everything with our Groups Pastor, Daniel — the first real “reveal.” He didn’t just encourage me. He asked me to develop a longer version to teach as a Wednesday night discipleship class this fall. Then he said he’d promote the current study to other Life Groups.
“It’s been an amazing ride — and Monday, April 20th, is launch day.”
So here we are. What started as a quiet question in retirement — what’s next, God?— turned into a mountain cabin moment, a secret small group study, a son with serious web skills, a conference room in Houston, and a pastor who immediately caught the vision.
I didn’t plan any of this. I just kept saying yes to the nudges.
The Interruption goes public. rickcadden.com is live. The ride continues.
