I have lived in wars in my life.

Not the headline-grabbing kind, but the private kind, where people hate and relationships are torn asunder and characters are assailed and projections, truth, and lies are so mixed up that one is hard to discern from another.

I have been a victim and a warrior and at times both. I have won. I have lost. No, change that. I have always lost.

Because in the end, no one wins wars. The victors crow. The losers dig out of the rubble. Both bear scars. There are deaths on both sides. Things are lost on both sides. Deep, deep things.

There are scars. Some fade. Some never do.

I see this in history. Years ago, when I went to Munich, Germany, I saw the city, rebuilt and resplendent. After World War Two, The city was resurrected from the rubble of war. The Germans went out of their way to rebuild in a way that captured the essence of what had been there before the war. Row houses and such were reconstructed in a similar style as before the war. WIth a quick glance, it is hard to tell the newer building from the originals.

But look closer and you see. Embellishments are missing. Details that punctuate the originals are simply not there. The brick work is different. The glass is different, no longer wavy and bubbled and aged.

The same is true of me. Likely of you as well. I look similar to the man I was 10 – 15 years ago. I do many of the same things, fill many of the same roles in life. I love many of the same things.

And yet, at the same time, I am radically different. Things that came easily to me like love and openness and trust are hard work now, victims of war. Still there, but things that today I have to work at, no longer natural. My creativity, also once so easy it was dazzling, died. Always slow at processing feelings and sorting out truth, now I am positively glacial in the slowness of it all. I have crawled through bouts of depression that were scary bad, dark debilitating places that made just getting up in the morning hard.

It’s been more than a decade, over a third of it with great counselors and good pastors and those things are not coming back. They are gone. The victims of wars that never appeared in the papers and never took an act of congress. Secret wars that only those closest to me have seen, and even them, only from afar.

But here’s the thing about wars. Something is lost, but, assuming you survive (and I fully understand that some don’t), then new things come from it.

Feelings may come slowly to me, but I think better. I get overwhelmed by emotions less. I may be slower in trusting love and trusting friends, but the love and the trust, once I am there, is far deeper, far stronger, far more valuable to me simply BECAUSE I have to work to make myself open to it. My creativity has returned, and it too, is more precious to me than it was before, simply because I understand what it is like to lose it.

My depression is alive and well. But I have tamed it. Sure, it’s a day to day war, battle after battle I win most days. I lose now and then. But I have learned its wiley ways. I understand that there is no letting down my guard. I have learned that while I may never win the war, neither will I ever lose. It’s not the monster, it’s just a pesky petulant child that has to be kept in its place.

I am stronger. Once avoidant of all conflict, I’ve learned, at a ripe old age, to deal with it. I no longer flee from it indiscriminately. I choose my battles, I no longer apologize when I choose to walk away. I no longer apologize when I choose to do battle. That choice is mine, and I am less buffeted by what people think than I once was.

The list goes on and on. There are things that I miss from the pre-wars me. I don’t dwell on them, but when they come up, the sadness and sense of loss is deep. I missed the natural development of who I was. I missed a few years of having my kids with me day in and day out. I missed the feeling of security in relationship that was part of my life once. I missed the confident, almost cocky me that so many things came easy to.

But I don’t dwell. Because I like the stronger me. I like the more deliberate me. I am slower at finding truth, but more confident in it once I do get there. I am more appreciative of inspiration. I am far more spiritual and faithful. I am OK with my scars (and they are plentiful). I like knowing what I can survive. I like knowing that no matter how battered and broken I am at any given moment, I will grow out of it, into something new and perhaps different, but still of worth, still able to live in joy.

And I am far more compassionate than I was before. Being broken, completely broken yourself can do that to you, do that for for you. I no longer feel for the broken people in my life. I feel with them. There’s a big difference.

I am far more aware of my flaws now, having had them heaped on my in the midst of battle like a volley of enemy fire. I can’t ignore the bullet holes where those who hate me have hit my weaknesses, my flaws, my vulnerabilities. I don’t need to look in a mirror any more to see my flaws. They bleed all over me and each scar reminds me where I fall short. Just because there is healing, it doesn’t mean that I can’t see them and feel them. Instead, they are reminders of how much work is left to be done. And it’s a lot.

These are lessons some people come to young. And they are lessons some never come to. I am, it seems, a late bloomer. Or I have been slow in my recovery. But that’s OK. We are on the path we are on for a reason and it’s far less about us than we think when we are young.

The most important thing I learned is that I’ll survive. I will mourn and I will hurt and things will be lost and that’s OK. That’s the way of it. Because at the same time new things will grow. After a war, winner or loser, what emerges is something new. And just as precious. And just as worthy. Just different.

So pardon me as I climb out of the rubble of the latest battle. And prepare for the next. I have seeds to plant, and songs of gratitude to sing, even as I bleed.

Be well. Travel wisely,

Tom