Grit. Grind. All-Heart.

Over the same years my beloved Memphis Grizzlies were forging their  “Grit. Grind. All-Heart” identity, and the mantra to go with it, in many ways, so was I.

With the help of some great men, I began to to resurrect and re-discover my heart.

I had a lot of heart, as much of us do, during my boyhood years and into my early manhood years. Dreams were giant and plentiful, passion was my fuel. I felt deeply and desire was plentiful. I had great and rich friendships and felt like sleep got in the way of life!

Then something happened. Not in an excuse making way, and it was frog in the kettle, heat rising without clear realization.

I began to notice that through my twenties and thirties, life rewarded not necessarily my adventurous, creative, outside the box “heart side” of me, but the grind, grind, get it done, make it happen, create it, grow it, side of me.

College rewarded it. Grads schools rewarded it. The praise of bosses and mentors rewarded it as well. And the buzz from peers about how early I got up, how many plates I could create and keep spinning (and when not, the illusion of it all).  I doubled majored then was in two grad schools at the same time while working a more than full time job as a College Pastor. I liked the buzz and declarations of my potential. I liked it a lot.

My metamorphosis from human being to human doing was well under way years before I even noticed a glimpse of it. Like undetected colon cancer.  In my best Harlan County, “I was eat up”.

The problem with human doing is that IT WORKS. For awhile. Maybe for decades, until it doesn’t.

I looked up in my forties and I felt broken. I was broken. A gifted counselor helped me see how lonely I had become. It took him about three minutes. He looked at me and simply said “Are you with us (in a room with two great friends and this new Jedi friend)?.

(This was suppose to be a strategic thinking retreat to chart the course for the next 10 years of an organization I loved, dang it. What are we doing?  I don’t want to human be, y’all said we would be human doing)

The second statement of the day, now four minutes in, went like this. “I bet you are lonely?”

I’ll spare you the ensuing blood bath, but the moment right before the floodgate of my tears broke open, my only thought was, “This is going to get expensive.”

I’d been exposed. Exposure of myself to myself and exposed to my brothers & exposed before God, though not a surprise to Him.

God graciously had begun surgery. Emotional surgery. Heart surgery. It was a brutal, beautiful, all day surgery, followed by months of intensive care and it’s been years of rehab.

In the words of my good buddy Jeff Schulte, I had become the Tin Man from the Wizard of Oz. I had become all utility without heart.

It all began 15 years ago or so and there have been other emergency surgeries. I am a recovering human doing.

As was spoken over me and to me that first bloody day…”The problem with heartless living and heartless leadership is the singular thing those you care about the most (God, my spouse, my kids and my friends) most want from you is heart. Your heart.”

I’m going to write more about my heart re-discovery journey in the weeks and months to come and along the way, share things and moments that give me the gift of feeling in my chest.

I want us all to Grit & Grind, but with ALL HEART

Schulte just started a new podcast, “Return to Heart”.

You can check it out here

Grindforth, with Heart