a long year’s repentance
A Memoir by Keith Stuhler
a long year’s repentance
At 73, broken by decades of addiction and despair, Keith Stuhler walked across a concrete bridge into a place called Faith Farm — not looking for God, but for somewhere to disappear. What he found instead was everything.
“My planting season is over. Nothing grows in cold soil… every man knows that.”
— Keith’s journal, first night at Faith Farm
About the Book
The Winter Planting is a memoir of addiction, atheism, and unlikely redemption. For over three decades, Keith Stuhler lived behind a carefully maintained facade — a former professional golfer, a business innovator, a charity founder — while privately battling depression, anxiety, and a deepening dependence on drugs that consumed everything he’d built.
After losing his wife, his home, and every safety net he’d ever known, Keith found himself at 73 years old walking across a concrete bridge into Faith Farm — a Christian regeneration program for homeless addicts in Boynton Beach, Florida. He didn’t go looking for God. He went looking for somewhere to hide. Maybe somewhere to die.
What followed was a year without television, phones, or contact with the outside world. A year of brutal honesty, nightly journal conversations with a God he didn’t believe in, and the slow, agonizing work of dismantling a lifetime of false beliefs. Keith calls it brutiful — both brutal and beautiful at the same time.
This is not a self-help book. It is one man’s unflinching account of what happens when you finally stop running — from yourself, from your pain, and from a presence that was waiting for you all along.
Keith lived it for 31 years. His story doesn’t judge — it understands.
A lifelong atheist, Keith didn’t find God through theology. He found God through desperation and honesty.
Keith was 73 when his life truly began. There is no expiration date on transformation.
Andy stayed, then left, then waited. Her courage was the catalyst. This is her story too.
From the Book
God, I do not know if anyone is reading this but me. I feel doubtful, but the people here tell me you are listening. I am skeptical, but I will do the exercise. If you exist, please show me. I need something direct, clear. No vague words or expressions. I have never seen you. Show me. Prove yourself to me. Get me out of here.
There was no response. Of course there wasn’t, but I tried again.
Why would You, an all-knowing omniscient God, even concern yourself with me? Put simply, I am a nonbelieving, broken old man, in bunk 42 in a barracks of losers in Boynton Beach homeless camp.
“Keith, I know who you are better than you do. I am here with you in bunk 42. If you believe, I will always be with you. That is who I am. They are not losers.”
About the Author
Keith Stuhler is a former PGA professional golfer who spent twelve years on various tours before building a career in technology, business, and nonprofit leadership. He founded a nationally recognized golf facility for children with special needs — the first of its kind — and lived what many would call a successful life.
Behind that life was a thirty-one year battle with addiction that cost him everything. At 73, Keith entered Faith Farm, a Christian regeneration program in South Florida, as a committed atheist with no intention of changing. One year later, he walked out a different man — the oldest graduate in the program’s 76-year history.
Today, Keith lives in Pompano Beach, Florida with his wife Andy. The Winter Planting is his first book.