Justin Martin Gets a Message He Can’t Ignore & Heads to St. Jude

During a Ducks Unlimited expo in Memphis, a social media message from a stranger named Cheryl stopped the host cold. Her son Justin, a 21-year-old cancer patient at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, had been too sick to leave his room and attend the expo as planned. The host replied, asking if he could visit. That simple exchange led him to walk through the doors of St. Jude for the first time, and the experience reshaped how he thought about his own platform, the nature of suffering, and what it means to show up.

The Visit That Changed the Weekend

The host had been in Memphis for the Ducks Unlimited expo, a familiar circuit of booths, handshakes, and merchandise. But the message from Cheryl shifted his focus. Her son Justin, a young man who had been in remission for years, had suffered a recurrence of cancer. Because his immune system was still compromised—his “numbers were too low”—he couldn’t leave the hospital. The host checked visiting hours (7 a.m. to 9 p.m.), cleared it with his schedule, and went.