When Strength Looks Like Asking for Help

When Strength Looks Like Asking for Help

I know the feeling. You can see it in their eyes, hear it in the tone of their voice, feel it in the pause before they speak. There’s a ritual I’ve come to recognize after countless exchanges with soldiers. Some of them in person. Many of them are late at night over a glowing computer or phone screen. At some point, their finely tuned personas begin to erode—give way to something quieter, something more real. A stutter. A hesitation. A suspended breath. And then, the question. “Chaps… can I tell you something?” This kind of vulnerability is risky. Dangerous, even. The culture of the military equates strength with silence. Shouldering burdens alone. With marching on when the world is closing in. But the more time I spend walking alongside these men and women, the more I’ve come to recognize that some of the most holy moments in my work—the most sacred exchanges I witness—come when a soldier surrenders to the weight of what they’re feeling instead of stuffing it down. When they dare to tell the truth.

A few weeks ago, I got a text from a soldier serving in a training site overseas. It was short, just a question: “Are you available?” I could almost hear the weight in his words, the kind of weight you can’t capture in a sentence. He said, “I’m supposed to be the strong one. But I’m not okay.” He opened up to me, poured out his fears and confessed the emotions he’d been too proud, or tired, or fearful to name. He talked about leadership pressure and not living up to the expectations of his team. He talked about being stretched too thin from the long distance away from home. He took off the mask and showed me his wounds, naming things he’d been stuffing down—duty and pride and survival instinct.

And something in him unclenched as he spoke. Not a breaking apart, but a cracking open in a sacred, healing way. In that moment, I wasn’t called to fix him, or rescue him, or pull him out of the darkness. I was simply to hold a sacred space for the words he was too raw and honest to say to anyone. To witness the courage it took for him to admit that he didn’t have all the answers. That he wasn’t as strong as he wanted to appear. We prayed together not for the burdens to lift, but for the grace to carry them authentically, and the humility to ask for help again. It’s one of those moments I carry with me because it cuts so deep. It reminds me of what chaplaincy is all about. Showing up to meet people where they are at. Beneath the armor and fade. Beneath the stoicism. Beneath the stories they’ve told themselves about what it means to be “strong.”

But it also made me wonder how many soldiers, out of fear of the price they’d have to pay, are walking around with private wars raging inside. Hiding the secret shame of a struggle they’ve been told they need to grin and bear on their own. Believing that vulnerability is a weakness. When in fact it’s likely the most sacred expression of courage we can muster. This season is redefining my idea of strength. It’s teaching me that true strength is not having it all together, but letting others see you when you aren’t. It’s owning your humanity most viscerally. And having the courage to say, “I need help,” when the entire culture around you is asking you to suck it up and handle it on your own.

In a society that rewards self-sufficiency as a moral imperative, this work is calling me to sanctify dependence as an act of surrender. To welcome soldiers into the messy, quiet, beautiful space between. Between the burden they’ve been carrying and the peace they are still waiting for. Between their need and God’s ability. It’s an act of defiance, even. Because sometimes the holiest thing a person can do is admit their own limitations and stay there, humbly and quietly, until the day God fills in the gaps and restores what was taken.

Lieutenant Kenroy Grant, Chaplain Candidate

LT Grant is a Clinical Pastoral Education student serving military personnel through digital and in-person pastoral care. He holds space for stories of resilience, struggle, and faith, accompanying soldiers as they navigate the unseen burdens of service.