By Sharon (SD) Mac
Healing didn’t arrive fully formed.
It came as a whisper.
Barely noticeable at first.
Like a quiet stirring in the heart that I didn’t ask for and honestly didn’t feel ready for.
But God has a way of speaking into broken places
long before we feel strong again.
Long before we even want to listen.
It started with a thought…
one simple question that came to me in the middle of an ordinary day:
“How many others feel like this?”
Not just widows.
Not just those who lost their spouse.
But anyone who lost their footing,
their stability,
their identity,
their finances,
their direction…
their life as they knew it.
People who were suddenly alone.
People who had to start over from nothing.
People who were drowning quietly while still showing up for work every day.
People who had no one to tell them,
“You’re going to survive this.”
I knew that feeling too well.
Too painfully well.
Then came the second question…
the one that caught my breath:
“If God carried you… shouldn’t you help carry someone else?”
A different kind of heaviness settled over me…
not grief,
but responsibility.
Not the crushing kind,
but the kind that comes with calling.
I didn’t know the name yet.
I didn’t know the vision.
I didn’t know the structure, the plan, the mission, or the roadmap.
All I knew was this:
God wasn’t allowing me to walk through fire
just to sit in the ashes.
He was preparing me to guide someone else out.
Slowly, ideas started forming…
not from ambition,
but from compassion.
Not from ego,
but from obedience.
I remembered what Steve wrote.
Stratiotology — the discipline of being a soldier for Christ.
Malakosis — the softening of the heart.
A warrior with compassion.
Strength with tenderness.
A soldier who protects but also serves.
His writings suddenly began to make sense in a new way.
Not just for our marriage.
Not just for our home.
But for others.
For people who needed support the same way I once did.
Then came the last whisper…
the one that settled everything:
“Pick up where he left off.”
It wasn’t a demand.
It wasn’t a burden.
It wasn’t pressure.
It was an invitation.
God wasn’t asking me to replace Steve’s work…
He was asking me to continue the heart of it.
To turn pain into purpose.
Sorrow into service.
Brokenness into blessing.
Stratiotology wasn’t just Steve’s calling.
It was ours.
And The Stratiotology Foundation wasn’t born out of strategy…
it was born out of survival.
Out of faith.
Out of mercy.
Out of the overwhelming realization that if God saved me…
surely, He could use me to serve someone else.
That was when purpose began to whisper.
When the road ahead didn’t look so impossible.
When I realized my story wasn’t ending, it was shifting.
And the journey of the Sojourner…
was just beginning.
Soli Deo Gloria!
To God Alone be the Glory
“Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.” -2Timothy 2:3
“Resolved, never to give over, nor in the least to slacken, my fight with my corruptions, however unsuccessful I may be.” -Jonathan Edwards, Resolution, 56
Leave a Reply