Since being at Walter Reed, I had become somewhat of a prayer commander, a far cry from the uncertainty and awkwardness I felt before. For the previous two months, prayer had lost all of its typical religious formalities. Prayer was said in mixed company, through tears, shouts, whispers, and even with strangers. When the chaos died down, the anxiety appeared, and I found it hard to pray for something I didn’t know anything about. I wanted to support Josh, but it was hard to get specific about this. I leaned into Josh’s nana (Cathi’s mother) for wisdom. I never told her about the day-to-day PTSD moments, but I think all grandmothers know when there is more going on. I remember her saying that God really likes it when you pray His Word back to Him because His Word is always good, and it is important for any believer to understand when it applies. I wasn’t reading God’s Word. Any spare time I had was spent resting or trying to take care of things back in Washington. Even if I had my Bible and time, I wouldn’t know where to start. Then, one day, I got a letter in the mail from a friend of my family’s. It was a typical letter of encouragement, but it included a snippet from the book of James:
Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.
(1:2–4)
What? I thought to myself. Is that in the Bible?? Consider it joy when we face trials? It was against everything I believed. I thought the rules of being a Christian kept you out of trouble, thus you should avoid the trials. This says the trial is good and it will make me mature. As my gears were turning, I felt like I was starting to see the story unfold and how it would grow our faith.
I talked to Josh about this verse and asked what he thought, because in many ways Josh personifies this. He could smile when the bullets were flying or when he was hurting because it took too much out of him to cry or feel sorry for himself. We had one of our longer discussions about this and agreed on two things: We were being tested, and there was no study guide. The expected outcome of being tested without preparation is failure, but the Word of God said we were creating perseverance so we could be mature and complete. We had no idea what that looked like for us, but for the first time in our relationship, we chose to walk spiritually together in the same direction. We would pray for more clarity on how to embrace this trial because of what it could produce. Silently, I prayed for more joy for both of us, with the caveat that joy wouldn’t be pretend smiles so people wouldn’t ask us what was wrong. Maybe we could actually embrace the valley we were walking through and carry the load with both joy and honor.
And as we met more people and asked more questions, we were pleasantly surprised to find couples that were actually not miserable. Each couple had their issues, and many were in therapy, but none got in the way of the veteran’s duty to give 100 percent in recovery and the caregiver’s duty to advocate. The dudes would congregate around the same equipment during PT while the wives huddled up and talked about the latest obstacles and how to address them. Both positions never passed on an opportunity to help someone else. We became a community with a culture of asking, advising, then following up like a sister would. We didn’t just give our opinions to create conversation; we made sure we were all being treated fairly. If I wanted a second opinion on a medical decision, one of my sisters knew exactly whom to call. If one of the guys was immobilized after a surgery, a buddy was there to cut up his chicken for him. Helping one another with the day-to-day made it easier to try new things. Learning to ski, golf, play
