Beautifully Broken

by Paige Wetzel

  JOSH

  My graduation date was finally here. I was going to walk across the stage at Auburn Arena in a cap and gown and a sash that said STUDENT VETERAN—a far cry from my life seven years ago. I went from being a kid on academic probation to being an adult finishing what I started. Auburn wanted to officially make me part of the family by offering me a paid position as the women’s tennis sports information director. I was so thankful at how far I had come, and when they announced “Joshua William Wetzel,” the entire arena stood and clapped for the guy with no legs.

  Walking into my home every day had the power to take the joy out of anything exciting. It was like hiding a sickness—no matter how many obstacles I conquered, part of my life was still dying—a really important part that made the future look hopeless. I was terrified. I stared at the ceiling of the guest bedroom, bewildered at what my life had become. I agreed that I didn’t like the way our marriage was, but to hear the word divorce out loud shook me to my core. I have never been the kind of person who thinks about worst-case scenarios. I have been pretty successful in my life thinking on the positive side of things, but the idea of my two children being raised by another man was enough to ruin me. In my soul, I knew there was no one like Paige. There was no future relationship that could ever measure up to what we had survived together. The fact that the civilian life that we created was ruining our marriage was mind-boggling. I was truly exhausted from the fighting, but I just did not know how I was going to satisfy all her expectations. I was a helpless wreck.

  PAIGE

  As much as I began to picture our lives apart, I couldn’t deny how close we were about to be. We were about to be working in the same place in the same department. We would be in staff meetings together and still have the same last name. I thought about it constantly. I was excited and so thankful for the opportunity, but how was I going to explain my affiliation with Josh? It was hard enough dealing with missing half of my first year at Auburn to have a baby, but to add that I didn’t plan on continuing life with the baby’s father was not how I wanted to start my career there. I prayed for clarity, asking God to help us work out something that made as much sense as possible, even though we were in an extremely awkward situation. I could temporarily settle my thoughts by reminding myself that I had made a choice and was not going back. We were still going to be great co-parents. I loved Josh as a parent, and I was committed to stepping aside and letting that flourish while I created my own life. My finances were in order to get a town home and things for the baby. I was researching how to change my insurance to cover me and the kids so Josh wouldn’t have to. It wasn’t ideal, but I told myself it was going to be fine. In the end, we don’t want to be together, so even though divorce is messy, we will forge our own paths and realize that we can care for each other better without the pressures of being a good spouse. We have made it through graduation, we will get the house figured out, we will have this baby, and then we can move forward with our plans to separate.

  I spent May of 2016 transitioning from my old job to my new job. As I was getting ready for work one morning, I kept replaying a conversation I had had with Josh the night before. We had talked about some concrete details to make our divorce as smooth as possible—who was getting daycare pickup and drop-off, who was going to have the kids which nights, who was going to tell our friends, and so on. Deep down, I still hated the idea of us getting divorced, but I just felt completely tapped out of emotions. Raising a child with one on the way was enough for me. Josh was still tearful and upset. I was drained, emotionally spent, and thankful that it would soon be a burden I would not have to carry anymore. Josh had already left the house to take Harper to daycare, and I was loading my car for my last week of commuting to Montgomery. When I went back in the house to grab my phone, I had a voice mail from a number in Alaska.

  The message was from Franklin Graham’s organization, Samaritan’s Purse, inviting us to a week-long retreat called Operation Heal Our Patriots. This retreat takes place in Port Alsworth, Alaska, a village southwest of Anchorage that is so secluded, the only way to get there is to fly a seaplane onto Lake Clark. I had applied for this trip in 2012 when we were still at Walter Reed. Friends said it was life changing, not just because of the Alaskan experience, but because the group conversations were led by former military couples who once struggled with family life after service. The demand for the trip kept us from going in 2012. We applied again in 2013 and 2014, but slots were filled from waitlists from years prior. I didn’t even apply for trips after we left the hospital because I thought we were done with taking veteran-based trips. Yet, here I was listening to a voice mail from a trip coordinator who “had noticed we had been on the waitlist for a while.” I do not believe in coincidences, especially in the season of life I was in. I repeatedly asked God in tearful prayers to stop me or get my attention in any way He saw fit if I wasn’t doing the right thing. I clearly hadn’t gotten the hint when we both had been offered a job at Auburn, so here was God with another one.

  I felt conflicted over this voice mail. I fully planned to obey God and take this opportunity, but did this mean that Josh and I were going to be… okay? I didn’t know much about a healthy marriage, but I do know staying married does not equal success. I wasn’t even sure I knew what a healthy marriage for us looked like at that point. A marriage retreat on the other side of the country wasn’t a gentle request to stop and reconsider; it was set up for actual healing. Could we be healed? Could we actually look at each other differently? I couldn’t see it, but I also couldn’t dismiss the possibility, either. My workday consisted of all the requirements of closing out a job (exit interviews with human resources, turning in keys, and leaving notes for the future coach) at AUM. With every task came a thought that circled me back to the opportunity in Alaska. Everything you’re doing here is getting you one day closer to your husband. What if God is actually moving us to the same university so we can fix our situation? Rolling my eyes at my own inner monologue, the other side of my mind went, Oh yeah, because that’s how life works—God gives people jobs to save their marriages. Still, a small voice countered back to me: Maybe that’s actually what Alaska is for.

  After getting home from work I told Josh we needed to talk. I let him listen to the voice mail about Alaska, and he looked at me with great uncertainty. With a sigh, I said, “You know, Josh, I don’t know what will happen in the next five years or the next five seconds. I thought I knew what was best for our family, but the truth is I don’t know what to do. I still have a ton of questions, and I still don’t really know how things will get better, but when I ask myself, ‘Are we getting divorced?’ the answer is ‘Not right now.’ I feel like God saved this trip for us because He knew we would be here. So… I want to go to Alaska with you with an open mind and intention to learn how to fix our problems.”

  He cried and hugged me and asked, “So… the divorce? It’s… off?”

  “Yes. It’s off.”

  JOSH

  As Paige told me the news of wanting to go to Alaska and that the divorce was off, I physically lifted my eyes up and thanked God. I had been praying for a miracle to save our marriage. And it came—in the form of a trip to the wilderness of Alaska. My prayer life was mostly about my family and for a miracle at this point. I had no doubt that God loved me, and He had certainly answered a lot of prayer in my favor, but I only had meaningful conversations with God during a crisis. I checked all the boxes. We went to church and tithed, but more than that was clearly not something I could handle. Overcommitting was part of the reason I was in this mess.

  The Army and even my own upbringing built up my assumption that I probably wasn’t going to get the first marriage right. I had wonderful stepparents who loved me as their own, but it made me believe that people have to have bad relationships to get to good relationships. Could we truly be spared that? Ending our marriage seemed so stupid when we considered what all we had been through, but we had both changed so much. It seemed like we ha
d just grown apart. I didn’t even know how to pray for Paige, because I felt like I didn’t even know her. I prayed that disconnecting from it all on this trip to Alaska would answer some of those questions and give me hope.

  PAIGE

  Reflecting on the decision I just made, I thought about what I truly believe about God, prayer, and how the two work together. Through nearly splitting up my marriage, I realized how much of my faith was still in its infancy. My faith has been big but not broad. I believed my faith could do a miracle in one place but could change nothing in another. Before I called our marriage off, I had certainly thought about everything the Lord had brought us through, but I learned to dismiss those thoughts when I convinced myself that the hard times were behind us at Walter Reed and that now we should face no troubles. When troubles came, I defended what I thought was rightfully mine, never pausing to consider that I might take the whole ship down with me. Going all-in with Josh was terrifying. I was skeptical of Josh but also not sure what I had left to give. I wanted success for Josh in life, but I just didn’t feel responsible for that anymore, so why volunteer to go to Alaska if there was no guarantee how much either of us could really buy into healing our marriage? He was coming from a place of guilt and apology, and I was trying to pour from an empty glass. What could be done in a week to fix us?

  As I prayed, the Lord said, “Paige, I already know the outcome of this,” and my eyes opened, physically and figuratively. I thought, Yes, God, You do! None of this is based off of what I understand, because everything I understand is based on my past. You are the only one who sees the future. You know what we will be taught in Alaska and how it will echo in our lives afterward. We are just starting this race, but You are already at the finish line. I thanked God for not letting us go to Alaska when we first applied. I also thanked Him for reassuring me that we weren’t rededicating ourselves to each other based on blind faith. I was energized by the twofold opportunity in front of me: I had hope for the future, but we were actually going to obtain a strategy. The setback was the setup for a new level of our marriage. Yes, we had to agree to lay down some heavy burdens and preconceived notions of each other, but there would never be another opportunity like this to completely shut the world out and work on each other. Suddenly, I didn’t care about what I could do or what Josh could do, because it was all God’s doing to begin with. God had been at work the whole time with his hand on the valve to release all the pressure that had built up in our lives—the preconceived notions of what we needed our life to look like, how we demanded so much of each other, and how we were raising a daughter and about to bring another child into the world. The relief was unreal even though the future was unknown.

  Our marriage felt figured out even though the hard work was only just beginning. God had only asked us to try because He provided the rest. We never meant for our marriage to get this bad. Josh and I knew what was right, but I don’t think we understood why it was right until we made mistakes. Even Paul says in Romans 7:18–23:

  For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me.

  That’s exactly how I felt. Dedicating our lives to God had already served us well, but like Paul said, I couldn’t carry it out in this situation. I felt like a prisoner to my hurt and my assumption that nothing would ever change. Thankfully, Paul keeps writing: “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death” (Rom. 8:1–2). I wanted to live for God, but it was like every choice I made for good became distracted by signs claiming a different way was easier, shorter, more convenient, or not what I wanted. I could reasonably cut myself slack for being truly ignorant to the consequences of us both working so hard. I certainly felt myself slipping in the two years we had been away from the hospital, but I could have never imagined we would have ended up more confused and afraid than we did the day Josh was injured. The sin I was walking in was bigger than me because I had not walked that far in my faith journey yet, so until I knew what to do, I was going to focus on what God had done.

  Even though Josh and I were on a trip to “heal our patriots,” we couldn’t help but do what we normally do and button up our problems for the sake of others. We met our travel liaisons and chaplains with all smiles, even though we were going on this trip to explore the reasons why we faked it. Other couples, however, came in with obvious issues. Some were not even speaking to each other. I made a mental note to try to stay out of their way, remembering that Josh and I were only about two weeks down the road from them. On the bus ride from the Anchorage airport to the airfield to our private plane, we reminded each other what we were there for. Even if a touchy subject came up, we wouldn’t hold back. We all boarded the twelve-passenger prop plane and headed to Lake Clark. The view on the way in was breathtaking. The plane flew through a split in the mountain ranges that followed the estuaries that flowed from Lake Clark. We were greeted by the entire town when we landed. Every man, woman, child, and probably pet was there, waving American flags and yelling, “Welcome to Alaska! Thank you for your service!” Our chaplains shuffled us through the spirit line and escorted each couple to their own one-bedroom cabin. On-site was also a beautiful one-room chapel, a dining hall, a raft house for fishing needs, and a lodge, the largest building, which was able to hold only about thirty-five people. We received our itinerary, and we had our first group session that night.

  JOSH

  We filed into the chapel and sat in seats arranged in a circle. Our leaders, former military chaplains and their wives, came in and introduced themselves and began talking to us about the mission of Operation Heal Our Patriots. Their goal was to take this week secluded from the rest of the world and bring some very common issues to the table and find ways to address them by putting God in the center. We couldn’t even be tempted with Wi-Fi or cell service—there was none. There was one landline phone that we could use if needed. Personally, I was thankful for an excuse to completely unplug so I wouldn’t be tempted to check on things at work. I was committed to whatever these chaplains had to offer. They seem nice enough, I thought. Hopefully we can get to know them one-on-one, because our issues don’t fall under “common” problems. Our session began with humorous anecdotes about spouses that everyone could relate to, like how they squirt their toothpaste or what they consider “clean.” I glanced at Paige, wondering if she knew how much I hated that we have decorative towels and a regular towel in all of our bathrooms.

  Then the conversation got real. I went from thinking these were nice people leading a Sunday school lesson to thinking, Are you spying on us? Even just surveying the room after “raise your hand if this applies to you” questions made everyone alarmingly paranoid. Of the ten participating couples in the room, almost all of us would awkwardly raise our hands in response to “How many of you feel like your spouse has no idea what embarrasses you?” or “How many of you choose to go in another room and hang out simply because the other person isn’t in it?” We all looked around at each other realizing that first, these chaplains knew what they were doing, and second, we were a lot more normal than we thought.

  Every day we went to a session where we learned about each other’s personalities, love languages, and needs. We were given opportunities to have one-on-one counseling on the ugly parts of our relationship. The chaplains responded with a smile and a story of that same thing happening to them. Paige and I both felt accepted and embraced by th
ese leaders. After we dumped all of our feelings on someone else, we got to go fishing! It was such a brilliant setup. Every couple talked and unpacked issues, and then sat on the edge of a lake, staring at a mountain range with nothing but the peaceful Alaskan wilderness in the background. After spending a few hours reflecting, we came back for another session, ready to bring more to the table. We wrapped up the day with an enormous dinner, and then Paige and I spent the evening in our cabin figuring out how we could bring it all back to Auburn.

  On the third day, during a particularly emotional session, we were talking about the differences in men and women. When surveyed about their biggest fears surrounding marriage, many married couples who had attended this marriage retreat agreed to the same fears: Many women fear feeling alone all their lives, and the majority of men fear feeling tied down all their lives. Both thoughts are overwhelming by themselves, and both can be felt even while married. We, along with everyone in the room, related to those fears. Whether spouses found themselves lonely or overwhelmed, the chaplains shared a strategy that would work against both: “Don’t think about the next thirty, forty, or fifty years. Instead, every day when you wake up, rededicate yourself to God and your spouse, and give them both the best twenty-four hours you’ve got.” It was so simple, but it hit me like a ton of bricks. If I could just stick to that plan, I wouldn’t have to worry about wandering off or letting things build up. Here was our new plan, one for all seasons and situations. For better and for worse, for sickness and in health, this plan will apply as long as Paige and I both shall live.

  By the end of the week, the couples who weren’t speaking at the start of the week stood on the shore of Lake Clark and renewed their vows. The women wore flower crowns, and we lined up on the lake shore as a stand-in wedding party. Veterans were getting baptized and rededicating their lives to God and their families. I’m not going to lie; I was ugly crying. It was inspiring to hear the men speak to their wives with such conviction.