It has been too long since my last blog… too long!!! I have thought of many opportunities to write but frankly the energy has not been there… but then something happens in my world that makes me want to share… or better yet… NEED TO SHARE!
That something happened 2 weeks ago at 345 am when my duty cell phone rang. On the other end was our base command post, kind of like the Air Force base’s 911 system, informing me that a marine was killed in Afghanistan 3 hrs ago and that I was needed to make a death notification no later than 530 am.
I immediately got out of bed and prepared my service dress uniform. It wasn’t until I was at the base in a briefing that was explaining the details of how this young (19 yr old) marine died , did I really come to grips with what I was preparing to do. Yes I have done death notifications before, BUT this one was different. All the training that I had been through began to flood my mind; my communication with God open wider than it had been in a long time and all of the death notification scenes from the many Hollywood movies that I have seen began to popcorn in my brain.
I was anxious, very anxious and wanted to get it over with. This was not just another “notification” this was a battle field notification; in my opinion, the worse kind. It brings the war right into the living room! I was about to give the dreaded news that every person’s family who is deployed and in harms ways dreams of never hearing. I was about to be that “face” of the character sitting across from the mother, wife, father or siblings that has been in their nightmares since their loved one was been gone.
How was I going to do this? Only through God’s grace!
I prayed harder and longer that morning than I have in a long time. I sent text messages to my friends and as they replied and I read them I literally began to feel the weight of the burden that I was carrying be lifted from my shoulders.
"For My yoke is easy, and My load is light" Matthew 11:30 and Isaiah 26:3-4 “You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you, Trust in the LORD forever, for the LORD, the LORD, is the Rock eternal – carried me through that day.
Yes it was tough, I battled back tears as this marine hero’s mom clutched a childhood picture of her eldest son, and as I overheard his younger siblings sob from their upstairs sanctuary, but I knew that He was with me in a very tangible and practical way.
Indeed I felt the “effectual fervent prayer of the righteous men” James 5:16b, carry me through this day - The toughest day on the job – thus far!
Question: How has God helped you make it through a tough day?
