soil.
I won’t forget the tears that welled in her eyes. She wasn’t crying, but her deep blue eyes were simply moist. Moist with relief. Moist with comfort. Moist with peace that returning home can bring.
The second leg of my trip from Washington D.C. to Texas in April 2008 brought yet another opportunity to witness a homecoming. I had about an hour in Memphis before flying to San Antonio. I pulled out a copy of my book, Stories of Faith and Courage from the Revolutionary War. I wanted to skim it, reflecting on my speech the next day.
The woman sitting next to me asked me about it. I explained the book was a devotional incorporating stories from the Revolutionary War. Not knowing her background, I simply shared that many of the stories have a connection to today’s military families, who, like our founding fathers, have given up their quiet lives to live loudly for liberty.
She then shared her story. A hospital administrative clerk, she was from Buffalo, New York. She had four children, three boys now in their twenties and a twelve-year-old daughter, who was traveling with her. Then she told of her excitement. On her way to the airport, she stopped by her son’s favorite pizza place. She bought him a New York style pizza and Buffalo wings. She wanted to make this reunion as special as possible.
She explained her son was in the Army and had been in Iraq. On his departure, he had prepared her the best way he could for his deployment.
“Mom, I know it’s hard, but I’m going over there to relieve someone else, so they can come back to their family,” he had said.
He returned from Iraq in 2007, but she hadn’t seen him much since he first arrived. He had found a civilian job was going back to work for the military at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio.
Her life had been affected by the war on terror in another way. She lived across the street from the former home of one of the Buffalo Six, a group of Yemeni-Americans who were convicted of providing support to al- Qaeda.
“I don’t understand how people who were born in this country and grown up here can become so hateful,” she said dismayed over her brush with terrorists in her own neighborhood.
We talked a little while longer. Later I had the opportunity to catch a glimpse of her reunion with her son. I didn’t notice what she was wearing on the plane, but at the baggage claim I saw her taking pictures with her son. She and her daughter wore white T-shirts with big black letters that said, “I love New York.”
With some buffalo wings, a New York-style pizza, and a T-shirt, this mom brought her son a little touch of his old home to his new home in San Antonio. She understood the value of a home-style gift, one from the heart.
Thank you for the meaning of gifts, and how they make special moments even more memorable. Show me how I can give a gift, even simple kindness, to someone today.
“My people will live in peaceful dwelling places, in secure homes, in undisturbed places of rest.” (Isaiah 32:18)
April 29
BRING YOUR COURAGE!
In the Pentagon a shield hangs on one of the doors of the Vice Chief of the Air Force with a motto that shouts Bring Your Courage!
No kidding, I thought, as I passed the motto.
It takes courage to see that evil has made inroads so deep that a global war must be waged to deal with it and courage to step forward in a complacent world to wage that war. For a long time our citizens took for granted the security we provided them. After 9/11, some reacted by withdrawing into their homes and their communities.
As Christians we often react in the same manner to the spiritual battle, the war against evil for the souls of men and women. Some fear that evil, and retreat to their safe Christian communities to their families, churches and Christian networks. But that is not what God has called us to do.
When Jesus gave his last words to his disciples, he did not say, “Wait and see” or “stay together and comfort each other.” In Matthew 10:16, he said, “Go…” He directed them to engage the enemy and gain ground. “Go and make disciples. He sent them into the world ”as sheep in the midst of wolves.” When Jesus sent them out, into harm’s way, he also reassured them that they wouldn’t be alone when he said, “I am with you even to the end of the age.”
The men and women I work with in the Air Force live with the possibility of death. Though they accept that they might die for the cause of freedom, they do not live without joy or happiness. But they live with this reality that their lives are committed to a higher purpose.
As Christians we must remember that our purpose is to change lives to offer hope to the fearful and the lost to rescue men and women from eternal death, and to offer them true freedom in Christ. In this, we also need to live with the courage that moves forward in the face of danger.
He has told us to “Go” but he has also told us, that he is with us. If those who fight in our military can live courageously in the face of death for the sake of freedom, how much more should we live courageously who go with God.
Ask God what your part in His plan would be. And bring your courage!
God, give me the courage to go and fulfill your purpose of bringing others to you.
“I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as wise as serpents and as innocent as doves.” (Matthew 10:16)
April 30
LETTERS HOME
I was traveling through America on Air Force business one morning and had a few minutes to gaze at the local paper over breakfast. I saw a two-page spread on “Letters Home” from those who had died in Afghanistan and Iraq. The pictures captivated me… uniformed young men and women smiling from the prime of life.
As I read their letters, I was struck by how many spoke of death. In the course of describing their challenges and how much they loved their families and missed them, they spoke of the important business that they were about in those faraway places. Their letters revealed that they did not regret their service. While they knew they might die, they wanted their loved ones to know they were ready. Many spoke of their faith in God and their assurance of salvation because of Jesus.
Not long after that, I was back in the Pentagon and happened to walk past the chapel that serves the men and women who work there. I reflected on how unusual it is to have a chapel in a government building, although I suppose it shouldn’t be surprising for the Pentagon. The men and women who walk those corridors face death as a present reality no matter their age or health. And perhaps that is why so many of the young faces who looked up at me from the pages of the newspaper considered themselves ready to die.
The Bible tells us (Ecclesiastes 9:12) that none of us knows the day or the hour when our life will end. But do
