Yesterday was August 15. Today is August 16th (17th). Almost five years to the day since Afghanistan fell apart in front of me AND so many others who had poured pieces of ourselves into that place (legs, arms, hearts, minds and souls). I wrote yesterday about the moral injury, the sorrow, the people left behind, the promises we could not keep AND the terrible powerlessness of watching twenty years collapse into days. All of that remains true. I will carry Afghanistan for the rest of my life.
; AND/BUT. ; AND/BUT. ; AND/BUT.
That is something Built to Lead has taught me. Two things that appear to contradict each other can both be completely true. I can grieve what was lost AND be overwhelmed by what has been given. I can carry sorrow AND experience joy. I can mourn the man I was AND love the man I am becoming. I can look backward with tears in my eyes AND forward with hope in my heart.
Because when I look carefully at these same five years, something else becomes impossible to ignore.
My life did not end with Afghanistan. In many ways – – – my life began.
Five years ago, so much of my identity was still attached to a war I could no longer fight. I had spent much of my adult life becoming a warrior. Mission mattered. Brotherhood mattered. Courage mattered. Being useful mattered. I knew how to move toward danger. I knew how to fight. I knew how to endure.
What I did not yet fully understand was how to live.
Then God began doing something in me that I could never have planned.
He brought me deeper into His presence and deeper into Built to Lead. I found builders who were willing to tell me the truth and stay with me while I learned to tell it to myself. John Rue became far more than a builder to me. Hundreds of hours together. Practice after practice. Question after question. Discovery. CORE. OPUS. Faith. Failure. Marriage. Identity. Purpose. Pain. Jesus. We built a relationship around something I had known in combat but desperately needed to rediscover in life: trust. (Trust is the terrain. Time is the vehicle.)
I “got” to take a walk with some wonderful believers through the Book of John…an 18 month walk!
And slowly I began becoming a builder myself. Think about that transformation!…Think on it.
The man who spent much of his life learning how to close with and destroy an enemy now spends his days praying to awaken, challenge AND transform people he loves.
The warrior became a builder. Not instead of the warrior.
; AND/BUT…
I began building into people. Leaders. Teams. Friends. Families. Men and women willing to sit across from me and wrestle with the questions that have consumed my own life: Who are you? Where are you going? How are you going to get there? Why does it matter? I have discovered that perhaps the greatest use of everything I survived is not telling people what I have done. It is using what I have learned to help someone else become who they were meant to become.
I have come to see my life-mate differently too. Not merely as my wife but as one of the clearest expressions of grace God has ever placed in my life. Through all my contradictions, intensity, wounds, failures, questions AND searching, she has remained part of the story God is writing in me.
My family has grown in ways that fill me with gratitude. I have watched my daughters’ become women with their own calling and courage. I have watched my sons battle storms both internal and eternal. I have experienced a deepened relationship with both of my parents who are still alive. I have experienced the almost indescribable gift of being a grandfather. The little ones entered my world and reminded me that life is not merely something to defend. It is something to marvel at. There is something profoundly healing about a warrior holding a little girl’s hand (tears).
My faith has transformed most of all.
Jesus has moved from the edge of my worldview toward the absolute center of it.
I have read Him differently. Studied Him differently. Prayed differently. Asked harder questions. Wrestled with Scripture. Wrestled with suffering. Wrestled with violence, forgiveness, identity, time, love, death, resurrection, discipleship AND what it actually means to follow Him rather than merely believe things about Him.
Somewhere along the way – – – the sentence became clear:
I am a disciple of Jesus.
That may be the most important sentence I have ever written.
I spent decades asking what kind of warrior I was. Now I am learning to ask what kind of disciple I am becoming.
I have written more. Thought more. Created more. I have begun pulling the scattered pieces of my life together – – – the husband, the father, the grandfather, the addict, the wounded man, the warrior, the leader, the builder, the friend and the disciple – – – I am learning to understand the whole man.
I was one thing.
Now I am another.
; AND/BUT…I am still becoming.
There have been new friendships AND old friendships deepened. There have been builders, clients, brothers, sisters, mentors, family members AND fellow travelers who have sat across from me and allowed me into their lives. I have discovered again what I once knew in a team room and around a fire in Afghanistan: human beings were not designed to do this alone.
Together matters. Oneness matters. BEING WITH matters. Love matters.
; AND/BUT…strangely, Afghanistan itself has changed inside me. It is still painful. It probably always will be. ; AND/BUT it is no longer only the place where something ended. It has become part of the ground from which something else is growing. That does not redeem what happened politically or strategically. It does not bring anyone back. It does not erase the abandonment, the suffering or the moral injury.
; AND/BUT…God has been redeeming me.
That is different. Five years ago, I thought my greatest usefulness might be behind me. I was wrong. Five years ago, I thought some of the most important chapters of my life had already been written. I was wrong. Five years ago, I knew how to fight for a mission.
Today I am learning how to live one.
My mission now is infinitely larger. Love God. Love people. Build the few God puts in front of me. Tell the truth. Stay present. Become ONE. Help others become more fully themselves. Give away whatever wisdom my scars have purchased…AND continue following Jesus wherever He leads.
So yes, August 15 hurts.
It hurts badly.
I will never pretend otherwise.
; AND/BUT.
Look what God has done with the five years since. Afghanistan taught me how quickly a mission can end. These last five years have taught me that purpose does not.
Maybe that is what redemption looks like from where I stand today (thank you JohnR, SteveP, RS, KA, JH and Telamon). Not God erasing the battlefield behind me but Jesus standing beside me, pointing toward the ground directly beneath my feet and saying once again:
Follow Me.
So I will (Lord, help me)…With the sorrow. With the scars. With enormous gratitude. With the people I love beside me.
Present and Unafraid (thanks, MM).
Still being built. Still building. Still becoming.
; AND/BUT I am learning that none of this happens accidentally. If I am going to continue becoming the man God created me to be, I MUST keep following. I MUST keep loving. I MUST keep telling the truth. I MUST remain present. I MUST allow myself to be built while I build others. I MUST remember the men and women who walked the old ground with me while faithfully walking the ground God has given me today.
I MUST carry both.
The grief AND the gratitude. The warrior AND the disciple. What was lost AND what has been found.
August 15th AND August 16th.
; AND/BUT.
Always.
PS…This took me two days to write. I immediately knew after I completed the August 15th blog that…that was only part of the story. Today, I got a message from my builder. “Do a rinse and repeat on how far you’ve come…”
Done so.
BUILT TO LEAD 
Truly moving! Great share and thank you for your transparency