Flossenburg concentration camp, just two weeks before
American soldiers arrived to liberate the camp.^13
The decision Bonhoeffer made in New York didn’t lead
to success. It didn’t make him rich or famous. But it was the
only decision he could make, one that agreed with his
conscience, and a crucial turning point in his life. That one
decision cost him his life. As he wrote in a letter a few years
earlier, “My calling is quite clear to me. What God will
make of it I do not know . . . I must follow the path. Perhaps
it will not be such a long one.”^14 Sometimes a calling isn’t a
means to a more comfortable life. Sometimes we don’t pivot
in the direction of personal success but toward even greater
pain. But here’s the catch: a calling will always lead you to a
life that matters, one you can be proud of. The way that we
get there, though, isn’t always up to us. Sometimes the path
can be costly, even deadly. But what lies at the end of the
road is a prize that money can’t buy and a legacy the world
won’t forget.
“It was the second best thing that ever happened to me,”
Matt McWilliams told me of the first time he was fired by his
friends. The best was the second time they fired him, forcing
him on a journey filled with unexpected twists and turns that
ultimately led to his life’s work. It was, at times, difficult,
even painful, but the pain was worth the reward.