From Failure to Steady Ground

In 2015, I was a failure. I’d spent the previous five years chasing a calling, a dream, or maybe selfishness. I found myself at my wits’ end, with bills piling up and the type of self-employment that just hemorrhaged any money that came in. The cost outweighed the benefit most weeks. When I set out on that path, I knew it was what I was supposed to do, and I just assumed the money would follow. The problem came when the money didn’t.

I was obedient to a calling I was sure came from God. I chased it with fervor and passion and was humiliated each week when my wife lamented our meager means. I don’t know how we survived. She carried us during that season with her management job at a local Starbucks. I’m forever grateful for her sacrifice and faith in me, even if I wasn’t a good bet. I felt emasculated because I wasn’t a good provider financially. Despite working harder than I’d ever worked to force this thing to work out, resentment built between us under the surface.

Mostly, I was angry at God. How could he set me on a path destined to fail? A more spiritual person may say that the lives I impacted during that season were worth the cost, and maybe they’re right, but that lifestyle wasn’t sustainable for my life, marriage, or faith. So, ten years ago, I walked away. I did my last sermon on Easter Sunday of 2015 and felt broken and lost. I was tired of being a failure. It was time for a change.

As fate would have it, while sitting in a coffee shop, sending emails to churches that wouldn’t hire me and studying for services already on the books, a friend asked if I would consider taking a temporary job with the federal government. He’d asked me once before, a year prior, and at the time pride and commitment to “calling” prevented me from taking that leap into the unknown. I’d never worked in an office setting. I abhorred wearing dress clothes, and the idea of a cubicle felt like enslavement. No thanks!

A year later, when that same friend approached me again offering the same temporary job, I took him up on it. Fear be damned—we were struggling, and since my wife was my first “ministry,” I needed to honor that over the traveling evangelism I was failing at. A steady salary with benefits sounded good. Even if it were just a temporary job, it’d help right the ship for a while. The position wasn’t guaranteed. During orientation, they said it would last between six months and two years, give or take.

Every team meeting at my new job had the shadow of finality. We were constantly threatened with termination. One day, human resources and security guards escorted four people out of the room for low performance. I was elated; they all sucked. One of the ladies stayed drunk every day—she sat right next to me—and I was glad to see her go. It also made me realize none of us were safe.

Despite people being fired around me, this job was still more secure than the traveling animal ministry I’d been doing. I took it all in stride. I was getting paid. I was finally providing for my wife. That’s all that mattered. I told my religious friends that working in a public service job for veterans was still like doing ministry. Truthfully, it’s not far from the truth. On paper, it looked like I’d be talking with veterans and helping them get benefits.

The reality of the position was that I just crunched numbers on a computer all day and sent letters taking money from veterans serving in the National Guard who were also receiving benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs. It felt demoralizing to be taking money from veterans, but that was the job, and it paid the bills, unlike my previous ventures. The first two years at that agency were rife with uncertainty. But again, every two weeks I got a check. I assumed I’d revamp my ministry or photography jobs when this temp job fizzled out. I also had a few tentative TV deals as a host on the table that I was hoping would pan out. Spoiler alert: they never did.

The week before they were set to fire all the temporary employees, I was offered a permanent position. I went with the sure thing versus the pie-in-the-sky deals I had with production companies and other ventures I was scheming at. They sent me to Baltimore for six weeks to be trained in the full scope of the job as a Veterans Service Representative, and I stayed working similar claims to what I worked as a temp. As a temporary employee, I was only allowed to work one or two types of claims—mostly drill pay claims to reduce the backlog—but as a fully trained VSR working on a non-rating team, there were quite a few things I had to learn. That next year was a challenge, but I excelled at it. I worked hard, got promoted, and continued to shine.

It’s been ten years since walking out of one door and into another. I now know that this, too, is part of my calling. I have the tools to serve the veteran community—a group I resonate with much more than the church. I can serve veterans on and off the clock with this skill set. I’m thankful for the knowledge, skills, and financial security this position has provided me. Even though I don’t love what I do necessarily, I’ve been afforded opportunities I couldn’t have imagined ten years ago. For that, I am thankful. Sometimes when you take a leap of faith, you land on your face, get humbled, and somehow still find your way in the dark. Turns out, God had a plan all along. I was just too dumb to see it.

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Stan Lake is a writer, photographer, and filmmaker currently living in Bethania, North Carolina with his wife Jess and their house full of animals. He split his time growing up between chasing wildlife and screaming on stages in hardcore bands you’ve never heard of. He has been published by Dead Reckoning Collective, The Havok Journal, Reptiles Magazine, Lethal Minds Journal, and many others. He filmed and directed a documentary called “Hammer Down” about his 2005 deployment in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom in with Alpha Battery 5-113^th of the NC Army National Guard. You can find his books, collected works, and social media accounts at www.stanlakecreates.com

As the Voice of the Veteran Community, The Havok Journal seeks to publish a variety of perspectives on a number of sensitive subjects. Unless specifically noted otherwise, nothing we publish is an official point of view of The Havok Journal or any part of the U.S. government.