New edition · 2026
This Ragged Life Renewed
A Life of Rebellion, Faith, Loss, and Renewal
By Ryan Thompson · Memoir · Editing assistance: Grok
“That night changed my life.”
Ryan Thompson grew up behind the Zion Curtain in small-town Utah, a restless kid in a struggling family. As a young man he ended up on the streets, and one night under the I-90 bridge in Seattle he was beaten and stabbed for a backpack that held everything he owned. Just after Christmas in 1998, with no license, bald tires and a blizzard closing in, he slid off an icy road near Deer Park, Washington, and prayed.
What followed was marriage, children and businesses built side by side, and then a drunk driver on Interstate 5 who left him with forty-two fractures, back-to-back hurricanes that took everything his family had in Puerto Rico, and the end of a marriage of nearly eighteen years. This is his honest account of rebellion, faith, loss and renewal: what he got wrong, what he has learned, and the faith he has held on to through all of it.
Prices in USD. The audiobook (v47, 1:37:56, 27 chapters), narrated by a synthesized voice, is free: Listen free on Creative Grace. Historical Archive: the original 2001–2003 chapters of the story, preserved on CreativeGrace.org.