Let Me Tell Y’all A Story is a weekly column that’s not focused on sports. It’s brought to you by our partners at Chuck Owens, Alfa Insurance.

The last week has been exhausting, as I’m sure many of you will agree.

If you picked up your phone on Wednesday afternoon and opened social media, then you were very likely shown a video of a man being murdered on camera.

It was shown to you whether you wanted to see it or not.

It was beyond graphic.

My 16-year-old daughter told me she didn’t want to see it, but it popped up in her feed anyway.

Same for me.

Cliff, we’ve got to show our kids how hard the world is, you might argue.

That’s fine, you raise your kids how you want, and I’ll raise mine how I see fit.

I’ve tried to guard the eyes of my children in ways that no one guarded mine at their age.

And it was a lot easier to guard young eyes in 1998 when I was the same age as my daughter is now.

There was always a rumor about a video that you could rent from Movie Gallery that showed people dying on camera when I was in high school.

 It was called Faces of Death and you’d hear people saying stuff like, “My cousin in Tylertown saw it and there is a section of a guy getting eaten by crocodiles.”

Today, we hold something much more potent than Faces of Death in our hands every day. If you actively use social media and your algorithm thinks you like it, then you might have an endless feed of violence pouring into your eyeballs through your phone.

The same might be true for your 14-year-old that’s always got a device in their hands.

This is a place where I come to write each week about good things.

Watching the news. Seeing the political discourse. Observing hate.

That makes being positive pretty dang hard right now.

Sometimes you’ve got to just sit and ponder on the things that make you happy, the things that bring you joy. If you think about them, then you might realize that you have been neglecting certain areas, and that renewed focus might be what you need to get the serotonin that you’ve been missing.

I’ve got a great friend who calls them gifts and the best thing I can do right now is search some up in my own heart.

Music. Music makes me happy. I can’t sing like the songbird of Magnolia Blues BBQ, Cody Dunaway, but how I wish I could.

When I’m at my happiest, I’m usually doing something that involves my favorite tunes playing in my ear.

I’ll get hyper fixated on a song that gives me good vibes, and I’ll wear that sucker out. It doesn’t have to be something new.

Back in June I saw Futurebirds open for The Head and the Heart in New Orleans with my sister. I’ve been walking around humming the chorus to College Try, the song the Birds opened the night with, for the last three months.

My Spotify wrapped is going to tell me I’ve listed to a song from 2021 more than anything in 2025 and I’m ok with that. The soar of the guitars on the track takes me back to the smile I had on my face while hearing it live this summer.

Live music, that’s another thing that makes me happy. When it feels like life is piling on, my wife will look at me and say, “we need to go see some live music.”

Pearl Jam, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Band of Horses, Bruce Springsteen, The Foo Fighters, My Morning Jacket, John Mayer, Dave Matthews, Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit.

When I need a good memory, I just tap into the bank of great live shows I’ve seen before. Nothing lifts the spirit like seeing a great band that’s having fun while performing for their fans.

Some of my favorite live music I’ve ever heard has been sung by folks that aren’t famous, but they’re the people I’ve been lucky to be loved by over the past 20 years of my church membership.

On a recent Sunday at Heucks Retreat Baptist Church, we sang Yet Not I but Through Christ in Me.

For Jesus bled and suffered for my pardon

And he was raised to overthrow the grave

To this I hold, my sin has been defeated

Jesus, now and ever is my plea

Oh, the chains are released, I can sing, “I am free”

Yet not I, but through Christ in me

When I am down deep in a ditch, whether it be a hole that I’ve dug myself, or one that has eroded due to circumstances outside of my own control – I can’t stay down long when I focus on the love of my Savior.

It makes hot water come flooding out of my eyes. It stirs my soul. It convicts me with this question, what am I doing to share the hope, happiness, and freedom that I’ve found in Christ?

Please look at that song title again. Not I. Not Me. Not Cliff.

When you boil me down to my innermost core, I’m no better than the worst criminal to walk the earth.

Without Christ, I am nothing.

This I know.

Back to the other things that make me happy.

The sound of my wife and son laughing as they watch Seinfeld together. The way my daughter carries herself with poise and purpose. My closest friends. My biggest dreams. A cheeseburger from Betty’s Eat Shop. Talking and learning about history, especially the French Revolution. Nights of laughter and dancing.

Those are the things that I want to train my mind and my heart on right now.

Those are the gifts, some small, some great, that come from our Good and Gracious King.

I’m going to practice what I preach this week. I’m going to put the phone down, not because I want to be uninformed, but because my spirit needs a break, and I’m going to look for more gifts to lift my soul.