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Manhood often feels like navigating through uncharted territory, but you don't have to walk alone. Join us as we guide a conversation about how to live intentionally so that we can join God in reclaiming the masculine restorative presence he designed us to live out. Laugh, cry, and wonder with us as we explore the ins and outs of manhood together.
00:00
Hey guys, welcome to another episode of the Restorative Man podcast. My name is Jesse French and today I get the pleasure of being joined by a good and longtime friend of mine, Kevin Lyon. Hey Kev, good see you my friend. We are live. We are sitting like four feet across from each other, which is so much more fun than the zoom screen. So it's just true. Kevin and was driving into work today, looking forward to this conversation and was thinking,
00:29
And when did I meet Kevin? When did that all happen? And if my memory is right, you and your wife, Michelle moved to Fort Collins in 2000. 2000. On the nose. Okay. Very good. Let's go back. Well, put me back in there, kindly. Yeah. I'm really glad you didn't go back to California. No. But, uh, neither are we. But that was 25 years ago. Yeah. We were on the three-year plan from LA to just sort of check out this new space and live by our friends, Bert and Heather. Yeah.
00:59
And if three years turned into five, turned into 10, and now it's been 25 and we have no intent on going back. So you are here. We are here and we are glad. Well, I'm excited today to be able to chat with you a little more of what some of your journey has helped kind of in the professional space and the occupational space. And I would just say like, yeah, I'm excited to want to run that because as I have been your friend and observed that and seen how you have walked through that process, it's one with like
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great thoughtfulness and intention. so thanks for doing that. And thanks for being willing to share some of that with us today. Yeah. Yeah. We, think maybe it will be helpful just to start where we came from and then sort of into the career and then out of the group. we moved here in 2000 to pursue our friends. wanted to live in community with them. We like to say we share everything, but money and wives. So that seems like quality, but everything else like life we shared with them.
01:57
So we came to Fort Collins and to follow our friends, but also to work at the same church. So about six years, we were full-time pastors at that church coming off of a bunch of youth ministry, full-time stuff in LA. And then about year four and a half or five is when things started shifting around at the church. And we went from what we thought was the rest of our life being pastors, both of us full-time sharing a full-time, should say. Transitioning from that, realizing that my job position at the church wasn't going to be around. So wondering at age 28 or
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30 somewhere in there, like, what are we going to do next? Like, actually it was more like 32 or two young kids and all of a sudden we weren't going to have a job. And so our friends, your father-in-law, yes, and mother-in-law, they suggested at one point, Kevin, you ever thought about fire and fighting fire, fighting it? Yeah. Not just not professional, not professional Larson or or Larson. Like either one, both generally bad. This is true. Yeah.
02:54
No, they just thought they said, have you ever considered? And I thought, well, no, no, I haven't really ever considered ever. Yeah. I know working in ministry, full-time ministry, vocational ministry, I always had the itch to do a second job. I always had my foot outside. So when I was doing ministry, I was also a brick layer, you know, or a rock layer with a good friend of mine in LA. were doing full-time ministry, but I was also a property inspector. I was always doing something outside the church. I always wanted to get myself around folks that wouldn't actually walk through the doors. Yeah.
03:23
And I like to say that's like my arena. love that space where people that may be spiritual, it's really common to say spiritual, but not religious. I just, those people are fresh in their meaningful and they have deep spiritual journeys. They just don't necessarily equate that with the church or a Christian God. Where my wife, Michelle, she actually wants to save the Christians. So she wants to, she would work full time at a church just because she thinks all the Christians also need to be saved in a healthy way. Let's be honest. do.
03:49
I was more outside, so it made sense to me working at a church and then also, well, I'll entertain this EMS side. So I took an EMS class at Front Range, which is a community college here in Fort Collins. found myself, my last class that I took was a seminary level systematics theology class in grad school. And here I was 33 years old, I think somewhere in there, 31 years old in that range, so early 30s.
04:17
And I was sitting in a class at a community college with 18 to 20 year olds taking an EMT class. I thought, what have I done? Yeah. It was the like felt like a little bit of a crisis. I'm like, oh, am I going through an early crisis? Yeah. Yeah. But you stayed. But I stayed the course. I found actually that I loved it. I started working on an ambulance here locally and what parts of. Yeah. What parts of that did you come to love? Yeah. I love the fact that it.
04:44
offered a free pass into people's lives. Like we'd walk right into front doors, into people's spaces and help them on the worst day of their life. We're able to render care. was this, they weren't asking us to come in and spiritually save them. They were asking us to save their life in some way, or form. And everything I was doing, it felt like in the church was
05:03
trying to solicit people to come to the church, trying to come to my group, trying to feed my little person that wanted to be liked and known and validated by numbers. You know, if we had a college group, if it wasn't the biggest college group, it wasn't successful, all that stuff. But in EMS, was like, they didn't care about any of that. They had an actual diversity and I was actually able to jump into their space and help in any way I could. Loved it. Was it overwhelming at first of like the pressure that comes with that? Use the phrase, the worst day of their lives. Like the stakes are super high. They are.
05:32
Yeah, I wasn't really freaked out by the pressure side. I was more freaked out by like the touching of people. Fair. You don't think about it. But I remember sweating profusely the first time I had to give a check of blood pressure on somebody because you're like grabbing someone's upper arm, right? You're touching them. You're placing stethoscopes. Everything's quiet. I mean, all of the touchy stuff where like my life and most people's lives are like that's reserved for close family and things like that. But to do it to a complete stranger, that was a
05:59
big hurdle for me. So yes, I was completely freaked out with that stuff. The actual death part and like if they're dying and try to help them wasn't the problem. was the initial touching. Right. I've known you for four seconds. Yes. Four minutes and I'm touching you in appropriate ways. Right. Yeah. So that was kind of dumb. So we're in EMS. we're doing that for two and a half or so three years. And I quickly found that that was not the next career. Yep.
06:28
It's super one dimensional. It's all EMS. You would stage, you know, I'm six four. They would have a staging and ambulances, which just meant you'd stage in different places. So six four in the front of a van front ambulance. It's a horrible. was terrible. It was absolutely terrible. And I just had this fundamental problem with like taking a nap on the cot in the back of the ambulance thinking, is that a thing? That is a thing. Okay. But not for me. Like literally sleeping on the job. Like sleeping well, and in a cot, like the actual
06:57
stretch mechanics of this. Yeah, I just like this seems wrong. Yeah. A healthy person should be on this bed. Yeah. This is reserved for the sick. Once again, I that awareness. Yeah, it was different. It was different. But it was just too one dimensional. And so I alluded to Brad and Teresa, they entertained fire. So really EMS was just a gateway into that's the first step into a fire career. So I love the EMS part. The local fire department, PFA opened up their hiring process of which I immediately applied for.
07:27
Gruelling was like eight or so months of a process of several panel interviews Yeah, but then that once I got hired on there that it was off for the races that it was operating on all cylinders it was How how did you hold the like you said earlier? Hey, we thought we were gonna be pastors like for the rest of our life This was the track that we thought we were on and then the realization of no that doesn't seem viable for me And we're gonna change lanes midstream. I'd imagine there's a handful of people that
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I've been in that are in that right now. The like the course is set here and now we're needing to set a much different course, like in the midst of that transition, in the midst of the application, all of that. How did you hold that uncertainty and that process? Yeah. With community. That was a very difficult mental change for me. It's hard to start thinking going from shared income to, I'm actually going to be the breadwinner. Is God going to be
08:24
In this, I mean, I'm a pastor and I'm preaching or at least in church ministry. Like a lot of folks had a hard time with what are you, what are you doing? You're you've even schooled so that you could be working at a church. Now you're changing. doesn't make any sense. But I really saw it as I feel like my big tagline and I kept telling myself this and my community affirmed it as like I was, I saw myself as a bit of an undercover pastor disguised as a firefighter.
08:48
And I write that a little bit about that in that book, but it really helped define me because that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to get in the spaces with people, even not working in a church and be able to do it as a believer, but not necessarily an obvious preaching believer. More as a let me earn the right like young lad Jim Raver. And he used to say, you know, earn the right to be heard by a kid. I felt like that was the same concept. Like get into a station, live with them and earn the right to be heard over time, which sort of it actually happened. Yeah. And sometimes it took a long time.
09:18
But it's a special place to know that God will go with you, even though it's not what you thought it was. And with my community, they just kept affirming. It's like, Kev, God's going to be, he's going to go anywhere you are. You could be a bricklayer for the rest of your life. And God could be, you could be sweeping floors. You could be a pastor. You can be a firefighter. God is in all those things. It actually needs people and believers in all those spaces. So it helped me reconcile that. Yeah, that makes sense that you had a sense of what feels personal to you is less around the what.
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maybe in more around like, hey, how I show up, whether that's working in a church or laying bricks or being a firefighter, how I show up and how God has wired me to enter those spaces is unique to me. And that is the place to be intentional and to really like partner with him in that. yeah. Yeah. But nonetheless, it was still very hard. Sure. Fire was not guaranteed. Even getting through Academy was not guaranteed. There's a lot of folks that they call it washing out and that's, know, so I was like hoping we didn't do that. Yeah. Can you tell, can you tell the...
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the story I think it was during Academy where they're, you know, putting you through this crazy rigorous testing. And if I'm remembering right, like at one point they put you in this like small pipe and that you have to like right crawl through and do the training of like crazy enclosed spaces and find space. Yeah. Maybe tell that story. That's a terrible story, Jesse. Thank you. Sorry for just like, thanks for reopening that wound. You're welcome.
10:45
Yeah. Part of fire Academy was, and I was three, four when I went through fire Academy, most of the rest of the guys in my Academy, there were only eight others were like 25 and 26, something like that. There was one other one that was close to my age. So in Academy, they try to get you to what they call a phobic wave or your breaking point because they, that's a, that's a real term. That's a real thing. It's called phobic wave. It's the point where you completely lose your mind and freak out and start, you know, like, want to hit the eject switch, like your fetal position, sucking your thumb.
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crying out for mama, that kind of stuff. And they want to get you there because they want you to know where it is. I suspect the military does similar things, but they want you to know where your, where your edge is so that you know how to navigate it. If you get there. Okay. Because if you don't know how to navigate it, when you get there, you do freak out and you'll die or you'll bad things will happen. Where others, which I appreciate in that seems, it seems like that makes sense. Yeah. So they had us, they had us crawl through this pipe and I'm six four.
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a couple hundred pounds and they had this pipe, I think it was 10 inch diameter, might've been 12 inch diameter, I don't know, 16 foot long water pipe. And it was above ground, it was daylight. And they said, okay, everyone, this pipe is big enough for every single guy here to get through. You just need to remember to breathe and move and not panic. Well, I got, and I was so big that the only way to get through was one arm was over my head and the other arm was down by my leg. Cause then my shoulders would fit. So I'm inching through this pipe and there's no,
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there's no other way through the pipe other than through the pipe. So I'm about halfway through the pipe when I stopped moving and the instructor is sitting on the top of the pipe, smoking a cigar, trying to encourage me while the rest of the Academy mates are just sort of waiting for me to get through this pipe. And I stopped moving and then I could start feel my heart rate go up and then I could feel my breathing go up and then I could feel my breathing not being adequate enough and then I could feel myself hyperventilating.
12:39
And then I was crying out to my instructor, you know, I was screaming out to my instructor and I literally was stuck. couldn't move. I panicked. he's smoking a cigar. He's smoking a cigar, just laughing at this whole thing. And I am literally having a panic attack, which is horrible. the way, it's awful. Yeah. And he just let me sit in there and for, don't know how many minutes, at least five or 10 minutes, I was in this thing completely stuck panicked and that I was hyperventilating and he just kept talking me through it. He's like, you just have to relax. You just have to relax. Like just.
13:07
breathe, breathe, breathe, breathe, breathe. And I just couldn't do it until I finally had exhausted myself enough. And I literally was crying inside the tube. I mean, I was, thought of it. This is it. I'm dying. I'm leaving my kids and family today. Yep. And then he called me down enough to where I stopped crying out for my mom and stopped calling him vulgarity. All the things that I tried to do to get him to help me out. And when I finally relaxed enough, all of sudden I was able to start moving again. And, I inched my way through the tube, but
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I just knew that I'd never wanted to be at that point again. And if I was, what I needed to do was stop and stop. What I was trying to do was try harder. Yes. Which is a very bad thing to do when you're panicking. One of the, I'm getting ahead of a little bit, but one of, I feel like you have these wonderful phrases that are, been common, like as you're in career of firefighting. And one of the ones that I love that you said is plan B is not plan a harder. Very true.
14:04
Very true. And I love that. And the pipe story illustrates this of like, have to stop. You have to stop. And I would say that maybe we haven't been to the phobic wave level, but like that feeling of let's just insert ramp up the effort and ramp up the RPMs. Like that feels like such a common way of how we try to push through something. The problem is when you try plan B.
14:28
is plan a harder when you try harder and harder and harder the steeper the fall is to when you realize the second time it didn't work again and the third time it didn't work and then you start panicking. Yeah. Whether it's financially relationally something you simply there's a point where you just can't force everything. Yeah. And being around at least in a firehouse a bunch of type a very driven energetic people it's very hard to not try harder because everyone has more in the tank.
14:52
And they just realized, well, I just didn't try hard enough. It'll work next time. But the smarter ones are the ones that are usually the physically less stamina type guys because they're sitting back or gals and they're sitting back and they're actually thinking like, Oh, that didn't work. Actually, maybe we should think about this. Yes. That certainly applies just in life in general. The harder I try, you know, relationships, the more effort if I'm just trying, trying to please myself or to try to look good or succeed. A lot of times I just need to stop and think and be critical about.
15:21
why or why are we not doing things that are happening? So good. So you make it through Academy. I did make it through. The phobic way was not the end of the story. It was not. No, I made it. Yeah. Thank goodness. So then you start life as a firefighter and you did that for a bunch of years. Yeah, that was about 17 years on the fire service, which went very fast. So I'd love to ask you my perception and I think it's probably shared probably by most people as like,
15:51
At least in my head, the internal ranking of like admirable professions, my opinion, like firefighters are way, way up there, like towards maybe top three of it's this honorable profession. You are serving your community. You get to like be a badass in my opinion, and do fun things like that. So all of that feels like the perception of that is like, this is the epitome of awesome career. And I would imagine.
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like knowing you, like there's some really great things about it and some really challenging things around it too. Like give us a little insight into, into that space that is deeper than the like from the surface. Cool. You're awesome. You're the epitome of toughness and service and honor and chainsaw capability. Yeah. I think you're right. think that's all the surfacey stuff. And it's true. was an honorable career. I think it's filled with a lot of respect and respect for, you know, those that are doing it.
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Yeah. Your question though, like sort of under the surface, mean, the easy things are just the job. Like you have the skills, call them perishable skills. So it training all the time. do all sorts of cool things. Like you said, we get to drive around in large engines and lights and sirens and move traffic and go down the wrong lane and you saws and jobs life, the kind of fun rafts, swift water stuff. Spray water. But like under the surface stuff for me was more the relational side. You're sitting in spaces with people that.
17:19
not only are you going on folks that are having a bad day, but also it's impacting the people you're working with. So promoting up through I retired out of the fire department as a captain, that position puts you in charge of at least the crew that's underneath you. Yep. And so it came with it a ton of weight with like, oh, these I'm responsible for their mental health as well, guys and girls. And how are they doing? So we go on a really hard call, you know, yeah, your heroes, you came in and you did CPR or whatever on this person. Maybe they live, maybe they didn't. But that has an impact on your crew. And then
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It's sort of the responsibility and the space to be able to sit with that and be like, how you doing? How did that impact you? Number one answer, I'm fine. Of course. And that was my answer too. The hardest underneath surface part for me was getting from I'm fine to what's actually going on. And sometimes it took a shift. Sometimes it took a week, but it impacted us all. Yeah. How did it sit in those spaces? Obviously everyone's different and the scenarios are different, but like there's no formula. But how did you navigate that? Realizing like, okay.
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They say I'm fine. I know there's more below that. can't just barge my way in that, but I'm also not going to just like back off either. Like how did you try to be intentional in pursuing what was deeper there? Yeah. Some dark humor was used in there. try to make light of a horrible scene to try to open folks up. I learned it from my first crew. You ever watched the movie or not the movie, but the show gets smart. They talked about the cone of silence.
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The front of a cab and a fire engine was our Conan silence. There was no listening devices in there. No cameras, nothing. And so it was a space to decompress at least initially and maybe throughout the shift where everything was open. Fair game, fair game. Say whatever you want to say, even if it's completely off color. Yep. And ridiculous. But what it does is it decompresses someone enough to then be honest. So offering those spaces, not being the guy. Oh, well, we all know that, you know, Kev's a Christian. We're not going to say bad words in front of him. But if I
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open the gate, so to speak. Right. If I go first. If I go first. And then it allows it to be like, oh, you're just a human too. I'm actually going to say, oh, this was terrible. I didn't like seeing that. It reminded me of my own kid, you know, whatever, blah, blah. offering that space and then just being with fire stuff, you live together. It's very different. You live together, at least the tail in my curve of 48 hours in a row. And on busy stations, you actually are most of those hours you're awake, even in the middle of the night. Sadly, we have a lot of hours together.
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And so there's a lot of coffee shared and there's a lot around the table stuff. And it just seems like this informal counseling session. So if you can get past, I'm fine. And I'm trying to be strong by breaking the ice and maybe a little off color stuff. It seemed to open up folks to actually share what was really going on. Yeah. Not every time. And you read the room and you see people that are looking down or sometimes I invited people to go home, you know, like, need to take, go, go take a couple hours off or, you know, a whole shift, stuff like that. But being, available enough to see.
20:07
What was going on in their head? was part of it. But it was also hard to get in the front row seat into what I would call depravity of humanity. And even in Fort Collins, which seems like a pretty nice place to live, nothing's going on, but the underbelly of Fort Collins is just like anywhere else. People are hurting and addicted and depraved and seeing the front row or getting a front row to that was, over time was tough, especially the suicides. are always the hardest. So you also have the dynamic of
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You work incredibly hard for 48 hours and then you go home to wife and kids and shift gears massively like and the shifting of the gears and just the holding of man. Like you said, I just saw incredibly heavy things and now then I shift gears back into husband and dad. Like how did you learn that transition? Navigate some of that because that feels like you are shifting from polar opposite spaces. Yeah, most of my career very poorly, sadly.
21:06
I call it the reentry. Yeah. Leaving after a 48 hour shift. One, I was emotionally exhausted, certainly physically exhausted, still holding on to all the memories of what just happened, but realizing that I now need to reenter family life was super hard. Most times I'd walk in the door and I was met with Michelle and the kids who hadn't been with me for 48 hours and were extremely in a positive way, extremely needy. needed me to reenter the family. So they had all their expectations and questions that they've been piling up for 48 hours and it would just hit me right as I walked through the door.
21:35
So a couple of things, used a couple of tricks. One, I would either take the very long way home and I worked only like three miles from my house. So if I rode my bike or one wheeled, you know, I'd take my time. I just needed something to switch gears in my brain. I couldn't walk into my house still in firefighter mode, which is very hard to do. I suspect it's the same with guys with work and guys and girls with work. To bring all that back into the home space isn't really fair to them. It's certainly not fair to me. And I needed a break. So later in my career, with help of my community and my small group, a lot of counseling.
22:05
There was this one, would take my time. Two, when I walked in, it was sort of understood with Michelle's like, let's greet each other and love each other. And then give me some time before like the big decisions. we, we called it the second day, second day decisions. So early in the career, I'd come home and like something big, like we're going to buy a car or we need to sell the house. Blah, blah, blah. Those were big decisions. I mean, within three minutes of walking through the store and I'm just fried. And I would always, I'd make the decision, but I'd do it.
22:32
in haste, with anger, frustration. I wasn't the best version of me. So we coined, were like, look, big decisions are second-day decisions. So the first day, we just reorient. And the second day, I'm going to wake up and we're going to go with the big decisions that we can decide. So that was very helpful. Man, it's so helpful to talk about that because, mean, and you brought it up, all of us have to navigate some sort of transition in our life, right? And being a firefighter, that feels like a pretty extreme one, right?
23:02
gone for 48 hours, come back, very, very stark contrast. But even still for us to maybe work at a nine to five, you know, come back, like that transition point still feels really important. And I hear you saying like my willingness to be intentional about that transition from A to B, how I step into that, like it feels so basic and it also seems so important, right? Of the reactive way to enter back into those spaces. Not great. No, a lot of damage is done in that first.
23:31
five minutes of getting home or can be done. And there's been a ton of firefights, like probably to the tune of a dozen, not a ton firefighter divorces. And most of them have something to do wrapped up in identity at the station and an inability to transition to home life or too much of a mingling of the two. Totally. So can you talk about the identity piece? Because I think we've talked about it before of like, there is on the surface, this appreciation, this respect for the profession, right? And I've heard you say like, it can be very easy for firefighters to just like,
24:00
This is who I am. My identity is, is grafted into this, which I think for us that aren't firefighters, that still resonates, right? Of like, sure. My value is found in what I do. So how you had a front row seat to that, both the observation of others and your own like wrestling with that. What did that look like? Yeah, that's a good question. I think, isn't it, Brené Brown talks about we all hustle for our worth. Oh. Some version of that. at the, entering into the firehouse is something different.
24:28
You enter the firehouse, one, you're all, have a very structured life that's going to happen. have expectations that are extremely defined. You're making the chaos go away and you're all doing it as a team. You're all working together for one purpose. Which is beautiful. Which is wonderful. I'm not saying these are bad things. It's just, it's defined and it's easy. And so your worth gets wrapped up in how well you do those things and working as a team, you succeed most of the time. It's hard not to. And then when you sit down at the table, you bring up.
24:58
conversations from home or whatever, and you always end up on the winning side because they're going to side with you because you're all on the same boat. But then you transition that and try to go back into home life. And you walk back home. Home life is harder. Relationships are harder. Kids are needy and demanding. if you want a great marriage, you got to work at it. There's just a lot of things that are more difficult. So identity starts getting wrapped up in actually
25:25
At work, feel great. I'm a freaking hero. you know, the public loves me. Yes. Doing good stuff. And everyone seems to think we're doing a great job. And it's so tangible. And it's right there. Right. I imagine the same things. The same concept was it, you know, working at church doesn't matter if you're fire is like you go to work. If you have a big group and your college ministry is thriving, whatever, it's all stroke in your ego. But then maybe the relationally at home, might be a little trickier.
25:52
So it was easy for me and fire and for a lot of folks that that was their primary identity was I'm all of these things. And actually I leave my primary identity and sort of moonlight at home and I'm sort of a husband and a dad and I kind of do these things only to, you know, take my time so that I can then get back to the station where that's who I actually am. Yeah. And that was a line I was unwilling to muddle. Like I had a pretty firm idea that though fire was awesome.
26:19
Actually, I was leaving fire and entering my true identity, is at home. One is a son, like a son of God, but also right. I'm a husband and I'm a father first and foremost. And those things bring value. Some of the folks, was the lines were far more blurred. Yeah. Which was difficult to watch. It makes so much sense. I think the, like the tangibility, the visibility of our success at work, probably the more frequent feedback, right? Of like, Hey, good job. You're doing a good job. Right. Even just those two pieces feel very different, you know, in those.
26:49
Relations with our families like that's the long game. You don't get that, right? Like, yeah, that's right. Not as much. And and they're long game pieces like you talk about the investment in our kids and our marriage, like the tangible nature of that is so much more. It's years. It's years. It's not like hours on a call where like this house is on fire. It's not. It's not. Yeah. Yeah. So a lot of folks got wrapped up in that identity became.
27:16
what skills I have, well, I'm going to skill up, I'm going be better at this, I'm going to be a subject matter expert in this, people are going to respect me, love me, adore me, certainly revere me because I'm the best at what I do. And then they go home and they're a failure and everything. it's hard to, you know, sometimes it's hard to be in relationships. It's hard to parent. It's all of these things. Hard to even be your friend sometimes. So they start feeling like actually the fireside is a whole lot easier and I'm going to put my energy here and then I can see how relationships would dissolve over time. My small group was
27:45
Johnny on the spot with all that stuff. were unimpressed with all of, I mean, they liked the stories and they always want to meet it. Give them a couple of funny stories or whatever. I never gave them the bad stories, I them the good stories and they wanted to hear that, but they also recognized, Kev, you're actually, you're this, your son and father and husband and a friend first. And oh, by the way, you get to be a firefighter. How fun, how awesome. Yes. But it took energy and it took them to remind me and remind me, remind me. Yeah.
28:13
I'd love to bring that up. can remember having coffee with you. This is probably 10 or 12 years ago. And you use that phrase. You said, I'm aware of my deep need to have people who are unimpressed by me. Oh yeah. And I remember hearing you say that and it was like the error light was like blinking in my head of like, what do mean Kev? Like, isn't the goal, isn't the like, I need to hustle for my worth so that people are impressed by me.
28:42
And your willingness to say like, I need people who actually look towards the deepest piece of who I am and the cool stories and the surface level honor like fine, but I'm unimpressed by that. actually cared about what's most true about you. Oh yeah. That's like the Brennan Manning imposter thing. I'm an excellent imposter. Like I will give you exactly who I can control because then I know how you're going to react. But I needed people in my life and I still have people in my life where they're unimpressed with me. Like you said.
29:09
They'll actually, and because they're impressed, they'll actually tell me the truth. Yeah. If they're impressed by me, then they're going to somehow want to say the right things. So that I'll like them some weird thing and they just don't seem to care. Yeah. They just, they want the best for me and they're willing to go in the hard space. It's to tell me the truth. And it hasn't been super easy all the time, but it's always been worth it. Yeah. To be in a relationship and in brotherhood too, like brotherhood groups that I've been involved with, you have to be in those groups with people with other men that are impressed with you.
29:38
They might like what you do. They might admire things that you accomplish, but they just have to be able to tell you the truth. Otherwise it's worthless. Yeah. It's just feeding your false self or whatever. Totally. Your little person. Yeah. You and I were talking about this before we hit record. Like you use the phrase my identity as a son, like as a son of God the father, like this actually is the truest thing about me and people who believe that on your behalf, right? Who actually is like, I forget, when I forget.
30:06
When I'm convinced that all of my polish is where my merit lies, it's like, oh, you're a son's kid. Yeah. And there's no way to unsun myself. Say more. Yeah. Like my kids, see it as JC and Jessup, they could be horrible people. They could do horrible things. They could do horrible things. could end up in prison and be crack addicts and all this stuff. And they could just be miserable humans, but it never ever, ever separates the fact that they're my son and daughter. Ever. You can't unsun or daughter.
30:36
yourself ever. And so the older I'm getting in the more I sort of start toying with the threshold of stagehood and like next season of life, the more I realized that's actually how you move forward is to believe that more and more and more and live into that more and more and more. I think it starts flavoring and it's like scripture talks about the aroma of God. It starts permeating through you that you're no longer hustling for affection or worth or trying or consuming or building. You're just
31:05
able to accept the fact you're son and that truly is enough. Yeah. And I can never get rid of it. I can try. Right. But it's actually not up to you. It's not up to me. So good. So keep unfolding the story. you referenced like, I left the fire service, but even take us a little bit to like that decision around realizing, hey, this time is ending. Yeah, I got into part of the reason I got into fire is I'm an IndieGram 2.
31:34
Yeah, helpers. Yeah, helpers. It's very easy to be a firefighter as an Enneagram 2. I do head right over to Enneagram 8. I can be the leader. I can be a decision maker, but my primary soul is the Enneagram 2. So I'm a helper. So I love it. I love service. love that. And I always told myself when I got into it, the day I'm only going to the station for money or that I don't want to go to the station, like I'm doing this job for finances or just because I had nothing else to do is just it would...
32:04
cause a break, it cause dissonance and just my goal was a undercover firefighter or undercover pastor disguised as firefighter. So I knew that was starting to come, but a lot of department changes, a lot of changes in me, we became empty nesters. I started dwelling a little more on missing significant events in my kid's life, in my marriage, things like that. You can always make them up a day later or something, but I was missing stuff. I started thinking like, Ooh, I don't want to do that anymore. Department changes had me thinking,
32:33
I know if I love the leadership, where leadership is going. I found myself wanting to go home more than be at the station, things like that. Then I had a little bit of a cardiac scare in 20, I want to say 2022, somewhere in there. It wasn't, hey, I'm going to have a heart attack. was, hey, my job, the stress, the calls, the memories, all this stuff is starting to affect me physically. And I thought I was pretty Superman until that point. So that was a wake up call. Yeah, things like that. There's more in there as well, but.
33:02
Um, things just made me start thinking, I wonder if there's life after fire. And I wonder if now's the time. And everyone talks about, know, your time in EMS and fire police services, whatever, any kind of pre-hospital stuff. Yeah. Everyone's got a date. Bradley had a date. had a date. His was 10 years earlier than mine. Mine was 17. I know guys that went 40. know gals that went 35. know, mine happened to be 17 or 20 in that range. Yeah. And then an understanding with my small group as well, that there is life beyond fire.
33:32
and maybe God has something for me. I just started getting curious. I started feeling like, I want to dive back into some different ministry stuff. I want to be available. And with, yeah, that's the whole other story. But the concept of being available, I found myself, I'm actually not very available emotionally, physically, or spiritually. I'm so tired and tired that I'm having a hard time being available for the things that I actually think matter. I was having a hard time reconciling that. Yeah. And so the convergence of all of those things, you're like, I'm going to be done.
34:01
I'm going to walk away at 52. So walked away at 52. Most folks didn't know what to do with that. Yeah. Including me. Sure. Extremely disorienting. didn't once I finally did it. Of course, regret came quick. What have I done? It's hard to get a fire job. I loved it. It stroked my ego. was financially secure, all that kind of stuff. Yep. So it was hard to move on, but it was the best thing I think we've ever done as a family. Talk a little bit more around, cause I think it can be easy to have the perception from a distance of like,
34:30
And our culture probably perpetuates this too, like, dude, retirement's the goal. Retirement is like when you are free to do whatever, you play golf, you know, seven days a week and you literally like, do you take naps? Like that is that is actually the standard of which we aspire to. And you say, no, actually, was hard. And then that's not it. That's not at all.
34:53
No, that's silly. That's in retirement. If you read any book, including one of Chris's, you recognize that retirement is relatively new concept and it's very Western. The idea of stopping work is ludicrous. It's not, would you do? You'd just be completely bored and purposeless. So I've reframed it. Michelle's helped me reframe it as I didn't really retire. I don't look at it as retiring from the fire department as much as retiring to the next mission that I see using. What is that going to look like?
35:21
And for me, it a lot like availability of retiring to become available to other things. Like if, for instance, I'm helping lead firefighter, the Bible study, the fellowship thing, never had the bandwidth to do that before. Helping at the church, the volunteer at the church with Brad, super fun. Never would have done that before. Doing some hanging stuff. I get to do rentals with our van and repair our rentals. mean, stuff like I actually now have time and space to do. I get to go to anything my kids do. Yeah.
35:50
because I am no longer under a rigid schedule. I sort of retired to some things that I was completely unavailable to before. love that language. Like it is not retiring from it. It is retiring to like the vision of what I am giving my yes to. Are these things? And I gave my yes to the fire department. It was worthy. Sure. Absolutely. But then it's there was a point where it switched. I just realized, you know, it's time to time to change this thing up. Yeah. How would you know there's not a formula, but like
36:20
I'd imagine some people are listening and are like, man, that concept of the yes that I am now stepping into is appealing, but the inner workings of discerning that, right? And like processing what that is. What did that look like for you? Cause I think that's, that's such a great implementation of that. And I'm sure that's not an overnight thing, right? Of like to actually pause to look at what options are available, how you're wired, right? Like all of those things to then to be able to say, yeah, I want to give my yes to these things.
36:49
Yeah. And that's a great point right there, Jess is the, the concept of saying yes to only the right things. The day I retired, my phone started blowing. Oh my gosh. Well, you're retired. You have time for everything. Everyone thought suddenly I had time to do everything that they wanted me to do for them. And it was very hard. It was a little bit offensive. Like, well, I might have time, but that doesn't mean I'm a yes to everything that everyone else wants suddenly. Right. Yeah. But it took, it's taken a couple of years to really figure out what the yeses are.
37:18
If that's what you're asking the yeah, it's it's hard. lot of folks thought when I retired that I was retiring out of something to then just get a different job. Like you're driving this job to get this job. And I really wanted to fight against that. And I had a lot of people give me advice on just take an entire year to not say yes. And then just stop and sort of think about what you may want to do where you can lunge your
37:42
You know, where do you see God working? Like BlackBee would talk about, where do you see God working? Now go there. And it took about a year, year and a half to kind of get through that. But it was, again, I think I mentioned before, was super disorienting. Like finances are a deal. We went from double the income to half the And so I had to fight the lies in my head constantly. And Michelle still tells me like weeks, you know, even weeks ago from today, I start getting this angst, like I'm the man.
38:11
Somehow I should be making the most money and I should be making more money and we need more money and we just have, we need more money. So we have more things in. And I, you I start almost going into a panic and it's more, I feel like God's been teaching us part of that year was God teaching me and Michelle, this concept of daily bread, uh, which I'd never, I never really wrestled with before. were financially stable, emotionally drained, but financially stable. Uh, but this concept of daily bread, like God really does provide.
38:40
if you let him provide for you. And most of the time I spent my career in the past 30 years building my own kingdom. I call it my own little Kev kingdom, which we all do. It has to do with families and houses and jobs and all this stuff to be able to stop that and recognize that God will actually provide even when I'm not hustling. I just couldn't see it before. I had to stop. had to get bored. I had to get scared. I had to get fearful. Yeah.
39:09
of not being able to pay bills and all that kind of stuff in order to see, Oh, wait a minute. God talks about providing daily and wait a minute. Maybe he actually will. he does. fact, Michelle and I feel like we've been more financially generous to making half the money than we ever were before. And certainly more free from just this closed grip on security and 401s and all the things that we all think we need. I love your willingness to be patient.
39:38
in the midst of the disorientation of like, I wish this was over. yeah. And your willingness to be like, we're going to sit and not rush it. Right. I like that. Yeah. If I was, if it was up to me, I would have rushed everything and gotten another job because I was feeling the pressure. But Michelle just kept telling me, no, guys, you got something bigger here. Let's sit in this weird space. Let's sit in the daily bread space. Yeah. And just see what God has in store.
40:06
And it was a much simpler life, which is fantastic. But I did along the way about six or eight months in, I started realizing that I couldn't like mentally, I wasn't super healthy. Like I was, I feel like physically it was nice to step away and learn how to sleep again, which is taking a really long time. But I started realizing maybe part of the retirement thing is not just go and get another job, but actually sort of figure out how to decompress from the previous 20 years. And I just thought.
40:35
Once I stopped the job, the day I said I was turning my badge in, that era is done. I'm fine. It's done. Like with any other job, that's kind of how it works. It just, it's sort of, okay, well I'm not doing this job anymore. done. But I realized that all of a sudden I was starting to remember everything that I didn't give myself permission to remember because I categorized it all, compartmentalized it just so that I could move on. mean, cause you wake up in the morning, you go on some CPR call.
40:59
You can't dwell the rest of day on the CPR call because in 45 minutes you need to go on an auto accident. Yes. Present. then three hours later you need to go into a fire. Two hours later you need to help, you know, know, 85 year old Jane off the floor. mean, it's like, can't dwell. have to be able to shift gears. So you shift it and compartmentalize it. And for the most part, I thought I was forgetting it until I wasn't forgetting it. And then about six, eight months in, I started realizing I wasn't doing so great mentally. So
41:28
I know one piece of that was you gave a ton of time to actually like write so many of those stories and those memories of your time as a firefighter. Like, why do that? I love that you did, but that feels very counterintuitive of it was. Yeah. Yeah. And why spend like, again, invest the time of like, man, I'm going to give hours, hours and hours and hours to actually getting this down and writing it. The shallow answer was all of my free counseling through the city and the department went away.
41:57
So I realized I didn't have anyone to talk to anymore. I'm like, uh-oh, I actually face these things. And then I got some advice from a couple of dear friends that mentioned memories never go away. And if you just try to forget them, they're still there and they always resurface at some point. So I didn't want to be the guy who proverbial like kicks the dog and beats the wife because internally I'm rotting and I just can't do it. I wanted to be mentally healthy. Totally. So I decided with the advice of some friends.
42:25
to sit down, I did it at coffee shops and I'd sit down with a computer and I'd simply sit there and whatever came to mind, whatever story, whatever call, whatever ugly, good, bad, indifferent, didn't matter, came to mind, I'd write. And so it took me almost two years, but my brain was so full of stuff that I sat there and I just wrote all these stories and I went into all the details. I felt all the feels, the gory details, all the stuff I wouldn't tell my family. Like they would ask, tell me a good story, a good call.
42:55
I'd tell them the good calls, wouldn't tell them the bad calls, like I said, but it was all those bad calls. like, well, you know what, they happened. They actually did affect me as much as I didn't outwardly show that, but they still had an impact. And so it was me sort of taking them off the shelf of my compartment in the back of my head, the forgetful shelf back there. And I'd write them all out and I sat there and I tell you, I wept and I cried in coffee shops right across from people just trying to have a cup of coffee with their three year old, you know, or their friend.
43:24
And I just sat there and I just, I just allowed all of the smells and sights and feels to happen. But when the magical thing happened, which I wasn't expecting, was that once I finally did that, then it didn't have any kind of control over me anymore. In fact, it was almost like I acknowledged it for the very first time I had lived it, but never really acknowledged it. Yeah. Yeah. So I just let myself feel them all and I wrote them down and it was magical. Once I did that, I felt like I could put them back up on the shelf and sort of to bed where I didn't have to dwell on them.
43:53
Yeah. Anymore. So, man. that's so much work. And I love that you did that. Right. Like you said, over two years. That was my first retirement job. Seriously. Right. Like that actually, that's a, that's a good way to put it. And you actually saying, this is most important. Yeah. But I'm going to, I'm to spend my time in this way. was an investment into my, into Michelle as well, my family. Yeah. I really didn't want to be the guy who's ends up addicted to something simply because I can't handle my past. Yeah.
44:22
I think God met me in the coffee shop. think he helped me see the things that I needed to see. He let me revisit. It was almost as if I was going in, like close my eyes and go back into the scene. I gave myself permission to look around and every time he was there somewhere. Isn't that so, ah, it's so good. And I, I would guess that that doesn't happen unless you are willing to get at the ground level of that scene, right? Like you were saying, I am naming all the smells.
44:51
tastes, sights, like sounds like all of that, like it's not 30,000 foot. Oh no. It is from a ground level. And I think there's so much wisdom to be willing to do the work of entering that, to do the work of naming that because then presence of Jesus, like you said, is found and the 30,000 foot view does not offer healing. No, barely perspective. Yeah. Right. It reminds me of, mean, RP obviously talks about your every age you've ever been. It's very similar. Like go back to like a
45:21
childhood experience or something and go back Feel all the feels and close your eyes and look around it's like that little boy for me Mm-hmm. it was Jesus in the room because it was a horrible scene whatever it was, you know, actually he was yeah He has never left. He has never left. He never wasn't there. Yes, and the realization of that is a real for me It was like it was very freeing. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Good stuff spiritually. Yeah. Yeah
45:48
And again, like I said, it was a real gift. feel like it was a gift to my family. Not just the writing, but also that I was willing to, I'd wanted to do the work because I recognized that it was controlling me. And I didn't want to give it that power. And it doesn't have that power. just sort of, least in my case, if I went back and actually acknowledged it, suddenly the power went away. I wasn't trying to hide it anymore. wasn't trying to be embarrassed by it or muscle through it or just, no, it didn't take strength to get through it. It reservation and.
46:17
turning over and surrender. But it was super healing. Best thing I've ever done. It was like free counseling. Best counseling I ever got was just sitting there and reliving past, inviting Jesus into it. And yeah, again, the investment of that, right? To say this matters. This is, not getting, I'm earning no money from this. No. I spent a lot. did. And yet the ripple effect, right? Of that in your own soul and those that are closest to you.
46:46
so strong. Yeah, it matters. It mattered. you. Thanks for like, taking us along some of what what the Kevin Lyon journey has been. Yeah, we're all in love in place, but there it is. Yeah, there it is. There's a version anyway. I love it. And yeah, your thoughtfulness and your willingness to hold it with open hands is a gift. So thanks for being part of this. Hey, you betcha. Thanks for having me. You bet.