The Slow Burn: Confessional

I met my childhood best friend in elementary school.

There was a new kid who moved into the neighborhood about nine houses down from mine. His name was Jimmy, but everybody called him Buddy. So that’s what he became to me, too: Buddy.

Every time I saw him, I’d sing the old My Buddy doll commercial jingle at him.

If you’re too young to remember it, My Buddy was Hasbro’s 1980s attempt to make a doll marketed toward boys…one that taught them friendship, loyalty, and care. It was innovative. It was controversial. And apparently, according to my child brain, it looked exactly like my friend.

Yup. I’ll probably catch heat for admitting that.

It is what it is.

Buddy’s dad was a preacher at a local Assembly of God church. For those unfamiliar, AG churches are Pentecostal…charismatic, spirit-filled, emotionally expressive. Sunday services could last four hours if “the Spirit was moving.”

Unless the Dallas Cowboys were playing.

Then somehow the Lord wrapped things up right on time.

Funny how that worked.

But here’s what mattered most: his family showed me radical hospitality. In many ways, they helped raise me.

Buddy and I were thick as thieves, and like most preacher’s kids…or in my case, preacher’s-kid-by-proxy…we were absolute degenerates. We snuck out at night. Stole a car once and wrecked it. Accidentally burned our junior high field house to the ground with fireworks.

Thank God for statutes of limitations.

Eventually, his family moved away during our sophomore year of high school. Life happened. We lost touch for years until reconnecting around his 40th birthday…but that’s another story for another time.

I say all of this because church culture was always around me.

I knew the language. I knew the songs. I knew when to stand, when to sit, when to bow my head.

But conviction? I didn’t really have it.

I think for a long time I was trying to figure out who I was. And if I’m honest, I never quite felt right before God.

Then, as adults, Kaitlyn and I decided to try church again. A friend invited us. We reluctantly said yes.

Two Sundays later…July 5th, 2015…God met me exactly where I was.

And where I was…was bad.

I was addicted to cocaine. Addicted to status. Addicted to the idea of becoming somebody.

Overnight, something shifted in me. My desires changed. I started surrounding myself with different people. I got involved in community. Our marriage began healing. Everything looked different.

But something else showed up too:

Conviction.

And conviction is uncomfortable.

Because while God changed my heart, I was still an addict trying to learn how to live differently. I assumed life would get easier after surrender.

It didn’t.

It got harder.

In some ways, much harder.

But through every relapse, every failure, every moment where I felt like I was taking two steps backward, God remained faithful to Kaitlyn and me even when we weren’t faithful ourselves.

That journey has now stretched across more than a decade. Somewhere along the way, sanctification stopped being just a church word and became real life.

The things I once chased began to lose their shine. The masks started falling off. The version of myself I performed for the world…the polished, smooth-talking, camera-ready version…slowly started dying.

And in its place, something more honest showed up.

Not a guru. Not a guy who has life figured out. Just a dude trying to walk through each day faithfully.

One day at a time.

Ironically, it was through confession….before God, before friends, before my wife, and before myself…that I finally became a real person.

That’s what birthed Brolo Cigar Co.’s Confessional.

A rich Habano Rosado wrapped cigar built around depth, tension, and transformation. Medium-plus bodied. Bold. Spicy. Layered.

It opens with heat and intensity….almost restless in the way it burns early on. It reminds me of those first moments of finally getting honest with myself before God. Raw. Emotional. Exposed.

But the longer you sit with it, the more nuanced it becomes.

The spice settles.

Sweetness starts appearing around the edges.

The profile deepens.

It evolves the same way real friendships evolve…through struggle, honesty, shared scars, and time spent sitting across from one another without pretending.

Confessional makes me think about every “stone of remembrance” moment along the way. Every hard conversation. Every late-night prayer. Every realization that growth usually comes through surrender, not performance.

It’s not a cigar about having your life together.

It’s a cigar about finally admitting you don’t.

And maybe discovering that grace was waiting there the whole time.

Confessional will debut as a 5x50 Robusto.

Confessional isn’t a status cigar. It’s the cigar you reach for when you want depth.

I don’t blend cigars to signal luxury. I blend cigars for everyday people to have meaningful experiences. Cigars that slow conversations down. Cigars that make you reflect a little longer. Cigars that remind you that being fully present is enough.

Because somewhere along the way, God’s heart for the broken and downtrodden became my heart too. And I don’t believe you need a $40 cigar to feel like somebody.

You already are.

Now don’t get me wrong….fancy cigars absolutely have their place in our culture. There’s artistry there. Celebration there. Ritual there. I love that part of cigars, too.

But Confessional isn’t trying to be something it’s not.

It’s affordable. Legit. Unpretentious. Raw and honest.

And honestly, those are the same things I’m trying to become every single day.

Light Up & Lean In.