Beautifully Broken

by Paige Wetzel

  After sitting and listening for the first two weeks, I realized that there were other men that were going through the same thing I was. It was like we all knew there was more to give, better ways to show up for our families and workplaces, but we didn’t know where it would come from. We were much more alike than I thought. The group wasn’t amazing because our leaders preached great sermons; they just opened the door for us to discuss what we had read. When I shared my experiences, everyone around me nodded in agreement, understanding my feelings, my pain, my frustrations. I felt like I wasn’t alone. God had already brought us to Alaska, where this same thing happened, but I just thought, Those men were veterans, people who had seen combat. Of course they are the same kind of messed up as I am. I left Alaska feeling like I had gained some training in how to be in a marriage that was scarred with combat trauma, but at the same time it was easy to believe that Paige was my only friend in the civilian world. I didn’t think I could find that same feeling of connection with people who had never served their country. I was surprised by how many stories and testimonies I heard that truly wrecked me. Human hurt is human hurt, and not only did I learn about other types of pain, but I also learned how much pain my Savior went through to rescue me. With each story, whether it was my own or someone else’s, there was something in the Bible that confirmed things I always knew: that God’s promises and even His regulations were meant to give us life, not discourage us or put us in some kind of ranking system. Each week on the way home, I couldn’t wait to talk with Paige about her time in small group.

  PAIGE

  The stories I heard from other women helped me feel like what we were learning was practical and real. The ideas were easy to hold on to and, honestly, easier to validate as truth. I had never felt this way about God before. When we were at Walter Reed, it was like we were carrying out our faith on a grand stage. People needed to see how we were reacting to things because it helped their faith. I knew God was real. I had seen Him do miracles right in front of me! But who was He in everyday life with everyday things? And what did our past have to do with it? I was busy spinning my wheels, unsure if what I did mattered or if we as people were replaceable in these jobs we sacrificed so much for. For most of 2017 I had struggled with wondering what the point of all of it was. Now, we were exploring topics like surrender, forgiveness, the power of words, honor, and how to use God’s Word as declaration over our lives. The small group lessons brought on the same feeling I had in Alaska when everyone raised their hands to the ugly questions. For the first time Josh and I wanted to know who God is, not just what He does. Knowing who God is cleared the path to living a life full of compassion for others, real empathy, and knowing that God had declared victory over us already. For the first time maybe ever, we spent our time together talking about God, our relationships with Jesus, and what new revelations we had had in small group. The tasks were inevitable, but they didn’t have the power over us we thought they did anymore. Our story wasn’t over; in fact, it was still being used.

  JOSH

  The small group semester ended with a two-day conference at our church. Upward of five hundred people attended the conference, and now Paige and I realized that the people we passed between church pews were struggling with the same things we were. One of the themes of the conference was overcoming fear. At first, nothing came to mind when it came time to go up front and pray. I mean, maybe I’m a little scared of spiders, but I have an unhealthy lack of fear for so many other things. I had jumped out of airplanes. I had survived Special Forces Selection. I had stepped on a bomb and lived to tell about it. What could I have left to fear?

  As I was nearing the front to have a one-one-prayer with one of the conference leaders, I quickly realized that I feared leading. I felt paralyzed to lead in any capacity—at work, in my family, in my marriage. My fear of leadership is a deeply rooted darkness within me. It is the reason I had struggled to adjust to the civilian world—just like so many other veterans. We feel like there will never be a greater calling than the one we just completed in our time of service. At first, there was a little relief to not have my life dangling by a thread every day. But then anytime I thought of the future, it felt like nothing would be as significant as serving my country.

  The root of this fear dug deeper within me when I realized that I still was haunted by what happened to Sergeant Barrera and Juan. I had done everything to push that into the back of my mind and lock it away for years, but survivor’s guilt said their fate was a reflection of my leadership, proof I should never lead again. Put those two feelings together, and I thought, I can’t do it, and even if I could, it wouldn’t matter anyway.

  During this conference, I realized that that’s exactly where Satan wanted me: isolated and feeling like I was a lost cause. Standing in line for prayer, I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to blurt all of this out to the person who would end up praying for me. I was beckoned over to the corner and asked what was on my mind—I could barely catch my breath, let alone speak coherent sentences. All I could say was, “Ever since I got out of the Army, I have been afraid to lead.” He didn’t ask for any more details; he just put one hand on my chest and one hand on my back and started to tip me backward. “Whoa!” I said. “Uh, sir, I don’t have legs, and I can’t really tell if my feet are on the floor—”

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ve got you.” This man confronted the fear within me. He spoke truth over me and reminded me that the Lord did not let me survive all of this to live in fear.

  Crying, I went back to my seat and decided it was time to lead again. I received prayer over the strongholds in my life and declared God’s promise to use those perceived weaknesses as a place for the power of Jesus to take root. For the first time I looked beyond my own capabilities. My subconscious plan was to realize where my capabilities ended and just live up to that ceiling. But I had already unintentionally proven that idea didn’t work. If that were true, then I wouldn’t have needed the miracles that allowed me to be a father, redeem my marriage, or even save my life. All of those things happened because of something beyond my abilities, understanding, and even my level of faith. And because of that, I didn’t need to live my life as if those things were in the past. I needed to compound them. I needed to use them to help other people. What if other veterans, dads, and husbands could have hope for their futures because of how I stewarded my life? I decided I would lead veteran-based small groups, I was going to be a leader in my workplace, and I was going to ask my wife to get baptized with me at the end of this conference.

  PAIGE

  Josh and I went home after the first day both exhausted and rejuvenated. We looked our sins and shortcomings in the face and then told them to get in line behind the cross. Short on words, we lay in bed that night, and Josh asked me one of the most memorable questions he’d ever asked me: “What would you think about getting baptized together tomorrow?” I couldn’t speak but vigorously nodded my head in agreement, trying to hold back the tears.

  We had been told that at the end of the next session, anyone who wanted to be baptized was invited to the front lobby. Josh and I both stood up and joined the hundred other people who were ready to start over. Josh took his legs off, scooted into the water, and was buried in baptism and raised to a new life. I followed, agreeing to the exact same thing. Our whole group stayed to watch us. After we were baptized, Josh told our leaders that he wanted to co-lead a small group next semester. I could not believe it! Josh didn’t even want to attend this small group three months ago. Now he couldn’t get enough of it.

  I learned so many lessons at the start of 2018, but I think the biggest was that God works in ways that I do not understand. If I had known everything that Josh and I needed to do to become the people we needed to be, we wouldn’t need God or His will for our lives. God doesn’t give ten-year plans because He likes to be returned to. He wants our hearts so badly that He sent His only Son to make a way for us. In order to surrender to whatever God has in
store, I also have to abandon all ideas of what I think the end result should look like. I started to reflect on my job. I finally realized that faith should be practical. If it only counts in front of an audience or when it’s life or death, then the majority of the world can’t experience God on a personal level. I started asking God what I should learn in the difficult things that happened on a day-to-day basis instead of asking Him to take the difficulties away completely. The more I prayed, the more I prevailed. I didn’t suddenly do everything right at work, but I decided to stop telling myself I was a screw-up. I started looking at my planning as a means to bring peace to my team and thus my life. I chose to believe it would make a difference.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  ETERNAL MISSION

  Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!

  —2 Corinthians 5:17

  JOSH

  When I went under the water during my baptism, I had one very specific thing I vowed to set myself free from: shame. Thinking back on our first night of this small group, I remembered that the fall of man—the lying and hiding from God—manifested under the feeling of shame. Covering the topic of shame was what made me buy into this curriculum in the first place because it explained shame as more than guilt. Guilt is a bad feeling about what you’ve done. Shame is a bad feeling about who you are. When my subconscious plan was to only live up to the ceiling of my capabilities, that ceiling stayed low because shame said I couldn’t do any better. No matter what, I had been selfish, an unfaithful husband, dishonest, and a bad friend. And until I decided to renounce those things in my life, I understood that my fate was to drag those labels into every area of my life, doing my best to cover them up.

  I knew that was not what God wanted for me. I knew that a big part of showing gratitude for my opportunity to live and honoring those like Juan Navarro meant carrying on to the best of my ability. Looking back on my life, caving in to guilt and shame is the reason my repentance never worked. Whenever I tried to turn away from something because I felt guilty, I could only turn away for a little while. I returned to harmful things because the guilt labeled me, which made me feel like sin would always be something I would have to hide from instead of confront. But I had already learned how to confront bad things: I stood face-to-face with evil every day in Afghanistan. While I had been afraid of my deployment and I was even more fearful going into my last mission, I had to confront the enemy that was trying to attack us. As scary as it was, I wanted to be aggressive when we were under fire so the enemy couldn’t gain any ground. The attitude that I had adopted over my own life was almost the opposite of that. I wasn’t speaking truth over these labels, and I didn’t even pray over them until they were exposed. I just stayed in this frustration of longing for acceptance while also feeling like I didn’t have the power to live differently.

  I finally understood that sin is not this huge moment of doing something bad. It is like a slow poisoning of all the good things in your life. If I continued to choose a life of hiding the things I felt guilty about, then eventually it would separate me from the relationships that would sustain me through the rest of my life. Whether I thought about my shortcomings in my marriage or losing Juan, I had to realize that I couldn’t always trust how I felt. I needed good friends, real friends, who understood. For the longest time I believed that being around real friends might actually cause me more pain, but if I had just one friend who understood the anguish I carried from my deployment or how hard it was to be married sometimes or what it was like to be handicapped, maybe I could repent with confidence, because I had people who would remind me that I am more than the worst things that have happened to me.

  This is my vice as a combat veteran. I desperately want to live a life worthy of the name of my fallen friend, while I question myself every day about whether I could have done something differently. It’s a question that is too intense for a civilian. In fact, I will go on record to say that as much as I have opened up to Paige, there are parts of my deployment that I will never be able to tell her. But it’s why I need my veteran friends. I need the ones who get it. I need the people who feel the extreme sadness, pride, and joy at the same time when we think back on our time of service. We don’t have to constantly talk about everything that happened to us, but because we know all those details, we can look out for each other and our futures. If our time of service leaves us in a place of isolation, then something that was done in honor will cause us to lose the only people who understand us most.

  PAIGE

  Transformation is bigger than a moment. We will mess up a lot trying to get it right. Sometimes, the mess-ups and relapses are even more devastating because when you know better, you expect to do better. The devil had double-digit wins over us for many years. We would remove ourselves from the daily grind and temptations, make goals for our relationship, and pinky promise to do better, just to find out three months later that one if not both of us had still not evolved past the evils we vowed to leave behind. We would be devastated and disappointed, feeling like our sins would always be greater than us. My disappointment in myself made me forget that God would take my position and use it for good—to help me relate to other people. What if I handed sin over to the Lord and asked Him to use it as a battle plan? Then, when people saw us showing up for battle every day instead of hiding in the shadows of shame, others would look at us and think, Look at what they overcame. Maybe I can, too.

  That was my role. As long as we live, there will be evil to confront in this world, and God would defeat these demons with me. When I say, “with me,” I don’t mean God and I are side-by-side equal in power; I mean “by way of me.” He would be the reason; I would be the works.

  Life would not be perfect. No, we did not get all the solutions to our problems. Yet, the theme of freedom was overwhelming to me. Nothing about this conference or my baptism erased anything about my past, but my husband and I were free from the labels and stigma that came with it. Not because this was some feel-good seminar where people just agreed that there were no consequences for their actions. But rather it was a group of people who felt free to pursue the right thing because living in freedom means receiving the gift of new life from Jesus Christ. Josh and I wanted to serve out of love and purpose, not out of duty and expectation. Josh immediately opened our home to provide this same curriculum to veterans. As a leader of the small group, he learned more than he did when he was participating. As I observed each of these veterans leave my home at the end of the night, I saw them shift into more comfortable, friendly people who seemed to see our home as a safe place to talk about both God and their time of service. As for myself, I prayed that God would give me the courage to evolve in front of people. I wanted to be better in my job, I wanted to be a more intentional parent, I wanted to show more love to veterans, and I wanted my church (the body of Christ, not just the gathering place on Sunday) to be able to count on me. Asking for this understanding made me realize that He was constantly equipping me. The storms still came when Josh traveled for five straight weeks, when we had a rough season, and when Nan passed away. These were all times that tempted me to fall apart, but I had created a habit of seeking God every day, so even when I was afraid, hurt, or sad, I couldn’t be uprooted. I asked to see those moments the way God saw them, and even when I didn’t feel like it, it pushed me to lead and respond in love. In the choice of fight or flight, I have committed to fight. No more numbing, no more making myself too busy to think about life. I would take life as it came, believing that every season is equipping me for what is next.

  PAIGE AND JOSH

  Still the questions remain: Why am I here? Why did this happen to me?

  As humans we want to be able to give this answer in one hundred words or less. That’s not a purpose; that’s a synopsis of what we’ve already done. What we’ve already done should build our faith, remind us of God’s promises, and help us grow. It shouldn’t pigeonhole God into a life mission that only
reaches the extent of our understanding and resources. If that was how it worked, our life mission would be like selecting a major in college—choosing a future based on what we already know about ourselves.

  Here is what we’ve gathered in our individual attempts to answer those questions as well as forging a path together to live life to God’s best intentions for us. It’s taken us more than once for God to show us our purpose—we’re alive so that we can reach heaven and take as many people with us as we can by being the love of Jesus to others and using the Bible as self-application. Heaven is the destination, Christ-like love is the vehicle, faith and obedience are the map, and our talents, resources, and possessions are the streets we navigate. For us and our goal of bringing people to Christ through athletics, we learned that “athletics” is just the name of another street; it’s not a vehicle or a destination. As our journey continues, we turn onto streets with names like Parenting and Money, and we know there will be a street called Free Time in Retirement. God didn’t ask us to turn down those streets to settle down and stop moving; He asked us to go down those streets to pick people up! The more people we pick up, the more we’ve understood why we turned onto that street in the first place. After a while, we willingly take the detours.

  We hope our detours are what help people the most. Writing a book was a huge detour. It was something that seemed like a good idea but actually turned into one of the most painful processes we have ever been through as a couple. Our faith wasn’t always strong, regardless of how we were raised. We were immature, we made mistakes, we experienced real and ugly heartbreak, and it was hard to relive those things. We didn’t like going back and talking about all the times we pulled our own vehicles over with the intention of camping out and resisting when it was time to move (read: grow up, ask forgiveness, do better). But to be sanctified is to experience God. For us it has been an agreement to walk alongside God beginning at square one rather than checking the pulse on our religion once a week. Because of that, we are still figuring it out. We will spend the rest of our lives trying to figure out how to honor our fallen friends, how to spread the good news of Christ even when it hurts, and how to manage memories that can contain both pain and joy. But if we can steward these things with open hearts and smiles on our faces, it might just be enough to help one person hang on for one more day.