The Book of Deuteronomy begins with Moses telling a story.

He stands at the edge of the Promised Land and looks backward. He remembers the leaders he appointed, the spies who frightened the people, the choices that went wrong and the years spent wandering because fear became stronger than faith. Moses does not offer the clean, heroic version. He does not pretend that every decision was wise or that every setback was imposed upon him by someone else. He tells the truth about the journey because the people cannot enter a new land while remaining dishonest about the old one.

This may be one of the most important forms of work a man can undertake: learning how to tell the story of his life.

Men are often taught to tell our stories as accounts of achievement. We name the schools we attended, the positions we held, the people we led, the homes we built and the responsibilities we carried. When life moves upward, the story is easy to tell. We present each success as evidence that we understood the road and were strong enough to walk it.

The harder stories begin when the road disappears.

At the beginning of 2019, I lost my job. By the end of that same year, my marriage was over. In the span of twelve months, two of the structures through which I understood myself—my vocation and my family—had changed beyond recognition.

For a long time, I could have told that story as one of failure. I could have described 2019 as the year in which things were taken from me. I could have organized the memories around disappointment, rejection and the........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)