Michael Cosper on The Last Gift My Father Gave Me–A Surprising Encounter with my Dad, Jesus, and Jerry Seinfeld Opened a Door to Long-awaited Healing.

Image: Illustration by Mallory Rentsch / Source Images: Yevgen Romanenko / Mohd Kafii Isa / Sarawut Aiemsinsuk / EyeEm / Getty

Last April, I found myself sobbing unexpectedly and uncontrollably while sitting in a barbershop for a haircut. It was the first time I’d really wept since my father passed away a month earlier.

I’ve had a complicated relationship with grief.

Six years before, I left vocational church ministry. I resigned from a church I’d helped plant 15 years earlier, a church I thought I’d retire from. But conflict and unhealthy leadership had wreaked havoc on my soul, and it was time to go.