In a recent emotional episode of Hey It’s the Luskos, music legend TobyMac sat down with Levi and Jennie Lusko to talk not about charts or accolades, but about something far more personal: grief.
The interview took listeners through the painful journey of losing his 21-year-old son Truett in 2019, followed more recently by the death of his longtime friend and bandmate, Gabe Patillo. Through the loss, TobyMac’s testimony emerged not just as a story of survival, but as one of faith refined by fire.
“I just remember lying there and just zipping that bag to the top and my heart was just pounding,” Toby said, describing the night he gave his life to Christ at age 13. Decades later, that same faith would be tested in unimaginable ways.
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Grief, for TobyMac, has not been a past-tense struggle. It’s a daily walk. “I saw a parent with a little boy that looked like Truett in his arms yesterday… and it just messed me up, man,” he admitted. “It just messed me up because it was right down there where we used to live.”
He described the moment of losing his son as a fork in the road — a place where he had to choose whether to run from God or run toward Him. “It’s a faith-defining thing like nothing I’ve ever experienced,” he said. “You decide then, do I believe this or not? I’m either going to walk away or I’m going all the way in. Full trust.”
Toby didn’t sugarcoat the sorrow. “It’s like it’s right there always,” he said of the pain. “The only way I make it is to believe that God loves me and he loves Truett. And I know Truett had an intimate relationship with God.”
He shared a deeply personal detail — one of the last messages his son ever sent. “Truett’s last text to Amanda… he said, ‘Mom, is God tickling me?’” Toby said, overcome by the intimacy of the phrase. “You don’t think about someone tickling you unless you’re tight. That’s intimacy.”
When asked how he continues on after suffering multiple devastating losses, he gave a picture few could forget: “I feel like I’ve been a little compressed… I don’t know if I’ll ever go as low as I was when I lost Truett. And I don’t know if I’ll ever be as high as I’ve been in my past.” He paused. “That doesn’t mean my faith is lacking. It just means I don’t know if I’ll ever be as happy as I once was.”
Yet out of that compression — that pressing of the soul — came oil. “Joy is a serious thing. It’s our strength,” Toby said, referencing Nehemiah. “I’ve learned how important it is to read the Bible. That is how God talks to us… and the way we talk to Him is prayer.”
TobyMac also revealed that grief reshaped how he approached everything — from songwriting to backstage culture. Two of the songs on his newest album Heaven on My Mind are tributes to Gabe, the friend who stood beside him for decades and was with him the night Truett died. “Losing him… I feel like I’m missing a limb.”
Still, hope rings out. “I’m counting on what He promised,” he said, voice steady with conviction. “I’m going to go down believing. For Truett and for me.”
One of his most powerful statements came toward the end: “You go from lying there to crawling to somehow walking to standing up to throwing your fist in the air and saying, ‘I absolutely believe.’ Because I can’t not believe. I have to believe.”
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We often look for quick answers or easy comforts in the face of sorrow, but TobyMac offered something much more real — the steadying truth of God’s Word, and a Savior who walks with us even through the shadow of death.
James Lasher is staff writer for Charisma Media.
