I was Made to be a Soldier
I was made to be a soldier. When I joined the Army at 18 years old, it was all I wanted. It gave me a mission and a purpose. I stood shoulder to shoulder with other men, fighting for a worthy cause. I loved the excitement of combat. You might have heard it said before: there is not quite anything that makes you feel so alive as being shot at. All you have in that moment is your training, your inner strength, and your brothers. In some core way, this felt like what God made men to do. I knew it was what God made me to do.
All of that was taken from me in an instant. One day on patrol, an IED device was thrown into our vehicle. The resulting explosion and the shrapnel that entered my body meant that the soldiering I loved was over.
I underwent extensive surgeries. My organs were removed from my chest to extract the bomb fragments. My knee was pieced back together to the best of the doctor’s ability. On the other end, I found myself physically damaged and without the purpose that I had devoted my life to.
I was hopeless and broken. Life had nothing for me. I proceeded to spend the next several years struggling with PTSD, engaging in drugs and a life of cheap pleasure. My wife left me. For some time, I was not a father to my young son. The walls closed in and things got really dark.
However, I was intimately familiar with a need for hope and restoration. I was raised in the church. I had a good father. I knew the path. But one day I woke up and found myself physically broken, my military career gone, relationally broken, and my wife and my family wanted nothing to do with me. I was spiritually bankrupt. I had wrapped my arms around a life of drugs and living for the next moment.
I went on to check in and check out of rehab after rehab and program after program. I had disappointed and hurt my family and made a disaster of all of my relationships. I had taken advantage of all the good things I had in my life.
When people looked at me, they did not see an honorable man that served his country. They saw a drug addict. They saw a thief. They saw a man that could not be trusted. All of the things I had built my identity on—as a soldier and a man who was willing and able to do what the situation required—had evaporated. I was the guy that people said was beyond repair.
But God was not done with me. In one of my many unsuccessful stints in rehab, I had learned about a program that used to be on the property of White’s Ferry Road Church in my hometown of West Monroe, Louisiana. One night, I had reached the end of my rope. I felt broken before God and did not know what to do. All I knew was that there was a place I had heard of once—a place that was serious about loving people back to health.
I believe that God led me to the parking lot of White’s Ferry Road Church that night. The recovery house that I remembered being there had been bulldozed and covered in a parking lot. But God met me there—He was faithful. He was there to meet me in my brokenness. I decided that night, whatever God required of me, I was willing to give it.
He did not disappoint.
Through a series of events, I entered a recovery program called Awaken. This program was for the “down and outs.” There was no honor in it. I lived with half a dozen other guys in a similar situation as myself. But this time was different. In the past, I had been the victim. I would scheme to get by with as little as possible. I would hide. This time, I wanted healing, and God was there to give it.
I got involved in the church and began to serve. I became a leader in the house, and God began to teach me what it looks like to live from a servant’s heart. God began to heal me. He brought me into a community of men that loved God and loved one another (they were imperfect, like me), but who were not afraid to show it. In that season of humility God showered me in his grace. He put the pieces of my life back together in ways that only He can. He restored my relationships, and He restored my dignity. He gave me a new name.
Through a process that has taken several years, God restored my broken marriage. My wife, through God’s grace, has been able to forgive me for the many years of hurt I caused her. My two children are healthy. They have a father that comes home to them every night, who provides for them and hopes the best and fights for their futures.
He has restored relationships with my mother and brothers. He has made me a leader in my family. He continues to build me into a man that can not only experience the grace of healing but also the dignity of leading other men and women in the way of truth and life.
The degree of God’s restoration in my life has truly been far beyond what I could have imagined. God gave me the privilege of formally running the Awaken program I entered six years earlier. I’ve had the opportunity to minster to hundreds of men as they found themselves in the same position I was in.
I was later given the opportunity to serve as Celebrate Recovery Minister for Whites Ferry Road Church, an opportunity that allowed me to influence the lives of hundreds more as they came searching for healing. I am now part owner of a business that seeks to restore the hearts of young men and lead them into a noble manhood. God has put me in a position to give to these young men what I did not have, and what He has put into me.
Today I am a soldier. I am a soldier for men that find themselves broken and without a place to turn. I am a soldier for young men who find themselves fatherless and without direction. I am a soldier for the women and children that will call these men “Dad.” I am a soldier for my wife. I am a soldier for my children. I am a soldier for the church.
As I’ve said before, I am intimately familiar with the need for hope and restoration. And with each passing day I grow more familiar with the reality that God’s hope and restoration is not only for me, it is for all those whose lives I will touch. It is for the broken, and He is the healer.
Kyle Smith lives with his wife Kacie and their two children in West Monroe, Louisiana. After serving many years as director of White’s Ferry Road Church’s Celebrate Recovery program, Kyle is now a partner and operations director at The Carpenter Shed, a ministry where young men learn the tools needed to build lives of purpose.
Kyle and his wife remain very active members of their church, serving and leading others to the hope that can be found in Jesus Christ.