Today has been one of those kinda busy, kinda lazy days...spent lots of time resting and sitting on the patio with a large ice tea and just playing with the puppies. A few weeks ago I got an invite to Facebook.com, and said,"Oh what the heck," and signed up. Amazingly I already have over 100 friends, some from high school and college days that I haven't heard from in years, and interesting some folks who I've never heard of before! I don't get much involved in the causes, quizzes, requests, and other stuff that takes way too much time. I get notes from the kids and grandkids occasionally and I do answer those, and try to answer all personal notes. I bet you are already wondering where in tarnation this is going, so I will get to the point.
During one of my trips inside for more ice tea I stopped by the computer room and checked email and the old Facebook. In the middle of my laziness and do nothingness, there was a thought posted by a dear gentleman that caught my attention and low and behold I responded. His question was, (and I quote by the wonderful act of copy and paste) "......is wondering what questions you would ask if you were interviewing ministers who had experienced a forced termination." Now that set the "Ole Preacher Brain," to spinning and in a splittin' second my fingers were bumping the keyboard, and this is what they wrote (again by copy and paste!):
I would ask no questions other than, "How can I help and be of assistance to you and show you my love?" Most questions have a way of coming over as if it were their fault and that is one thing they just don't need at that time. There will be plenty time for processing as the healing process goes on, whether they were to be faulted or not. I will not add to their grief and yes, anger in any fashion. As a former fellow pastor and presbyter I have experienced loving and praying with those who have endured this indignity and can say from all responses just loving them unconditionally is the best medicine! Love and Blessings!! Len
Now thinking about it, I don't know if this brother was speaking of someone who recently, "got voted out," or just asking someone to go back in personal history 10 or 15 years. But whatever, 6 days or 60 years my answer is the same!! There are some things so personally painful, so anguishingly hurtful that I just can't bring myself to think about approaching that person and asking them anything.
As I understand it our Christ-like business is to give unconditional love and acceptance, and to help those who are in need or are suffering.
Over six years ago now I went through divorce and cancer all in the same year separated by only about a month. To be sure it qualified as the most gut-wrenching painful time of my life. One of the major surprises I experienced were those "friends" who didn't call me and those who did. Some of them I hadn't heard from in years, and whoo, all the way to California and past. Their very tone belied them; they were asking one question after the other, and you could sense their anxiousness for a juicy tidbit for the next "Fellowship Meeting." There was feigned interest in my well being of course , but it was easily seen through. After all if they were all that sincere there would have been more calls over the weeks and months, wouldn't there?? Yep, you got it, they were "one call johnnys."
However, now for the Rest of the Story: There were a few calls, less than 5, who called and said, "Len, I love you, I'm praying for you, what can I do to help you?"
Those wonderful brothers and sisters sustained me with their love and prayers through the darkest night of my soul! The calls were regular, the prayers were powerful. In one of my darkest nights my phone rang after midnight and a familiar voice said, "Len, I sense that you are really suffering tonight, I just called to pray and ask how I can help." Now that brings me back to another post on here...W. W. J. D.?
The Jesus who is the author and finisher not only of our faith, but of absolute unconditional love, asks us to let Him live through us. I know he would have a huge, warm embrace...I know He would say, "I Love You," and, "How will you let me help you through this distressing time?" Oh, and another thing He would say is, "I am with you all the way!!" Yep, that's what Jesus would do!!! So how can I do less????
"HE'S NOT A GOD OF A THOUSAND QUESTIONS, HE'S THE GOD WITH A MILLION ANSWERS...." It is to Him and Him Alone, I bow!!! I stick with my answer!!!!!!!!
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Saturday, March 14, 2009
We Were (Are) Soldiers
Here is yet another journaling from a few years back, December 23, 2004 to be exact. It bears much meaning to me yet......
Last night I finished watching the movie, “We Were Soldiers,” starring Mel Gibson, about the Viet Nam war. Gibson starred as Lt. Col. Hal Moore, of the 7th Calvary (Remember Custer?) who led his troops in the assault of La Drang Valley in 1965. It was a bloody, violent movie that got to the horrors of combat and the terrors that our soldiers faced there. So intense it was, that I found myself having to watch a segment then wait a while before going on to the next scene.
However, as I lay down to sleep afterward, it was not so much the blood, violence, fear, and terror that gripped my mind. It was the scene of the Lt. Col. addressing his troops just before they boarded the planes here in America to go into combat.
They were in formation, at attention, and these were his final words to them: “I can’t promise you that I’ll bring you all home alive. But this I swear, before you and before Almighty God, that when we go into battle, I will be the first to set foot on the field…and I’ll be the last to step off…and I will leave no one behind, dead or alive. We will all come home together, so help me God.”
Those words you would expect from a great military leader, and Lt. Co. Moore fulfilled his promise, constantly facing barrages of enemy gunfire and artillery to protect his troops and drag or carry the wounded, dead, and dying off the field of battle. The scenes are too many and too graphic to explain here, but when the battle was over and his feet stepped back on the helicopter, there was not one soldier left on the field, they had all been recovered. One scene that did imprint my mind was in the darkness only illuminated by distant enemy artillery, Moore set out to find two unaccounted for soldiers and in the darkness he searched until they were found and carried back to the company.
The thoughts that haunted the recesses of my mind were of those, “spiritual,” battles in which I have been engaged through the years…some of them as the leader, and some as the foot soldier. How often did a soldier fall in battle, and I left him lying there? Was it for my fear of my own safety? Was it my thinking that I had done all I could do for him? Was it my attention to other details of the battle? Or was it my just not wanting to be involved further, as he was a, “fallen,” soldier?
I thought of my own battles, and how I was lying wounded and dying, needing a spiritual “medic” to carry me to safety and care for my wounds. To be sure, a few were there. Thank God for them, they are the only reason I’m alive today. Calvin, Jim, Kelly, Mom, Jon, Garry, wouldn’t leave me there to die. I have a battle scar, large and ominous that I see daily, where the doctor cut out a cancer that was destroying my body. The scars that are the worst are those unseen, because they are deep within my soul and spirit! Some of them from those who were supposed to be my Lt. Col., yet they left me to my bleeding!
I no longer harbor the resentment that plagued me so deeply, but have found peace in forgiveness and grace. I’m not much of a preacher, and certainly not qualified to be the Lt. Col. or even a buck private, but now I consider myself a “medic,” and this I promise, I will never turn a deaf ear to the call of the wounded soldier, whether it be in the heat of battle, or in the quiet of the jungle night! I will not hold back and give in to my own fears while another bleeds and dies!!! There will be no more bleeding and dying soldiers left on the field on my watch!!!! So Help Me God!!!!
Last night I finished watching the movie, “We Were Soldiers,” starring Mel Gibson, about the Viet Nam war. Gibson starred as Lt. Col. Hal Moore, of the 7th Calvary (Remember Custer?) who led his troops in the assault of La Drang Valley in 1965. It was a bloody, violent movie that got to the horrors of combat and the terrors that our soldiers faced there. So intense it was, that I found myself having to watch a segment then wait a while before going on to the next scene.
However, as I lay down to sleep afterward, it was not so much the blood, violence, fear, and terror that gripped my mind. It was the scene of the Lt. Col. addressing his troops just before they boarded the planes here in America to go into combat.
They were in formation, at attention, and these were his final words to them: “I can’t promise you that I’ll bring you all home alive. But this I swear, before you and before Almighty God, that when we go into battle, I will be the first to set foot on the field…and I’ll be the last to step off…and I will leave no one behind, dead or alive. We will all come home together, so help me God.”
Those words you would expect from a great military leader, and Lt. Co. Moore fulfilled his promise, constantly facing barrages of enemy gunfire and artillery to protect his troops and drag or carry the wounded, dead, and dying off the field of battle. The scenes are too many and too graphic to explain here, but when the battle was over and his feet stepped back on the helicopter, there was not one soldier left on the field, they had all been recovered. One scene that did imprint my mind was in the darkness only illuminated by distant enemy artillery, Moore set out to find two unaccounted for soldiers and in the darkness he searched until they were found and carried back to the company.
The thoughts that haunted the recesses of my mind were of those, “spiritual,” battles in which I have been engaged through the years…some of them as the leader, and some as the foot soldier. How often did a soldier fall in battle, and I left him lying there? Was it for my fear of my own safety? Was it my thinking that I had done all I could do for him? Was it my attention to other details of the battle? Or was it my just not wanting to be involved further, as he was a, “fallen,” soldier?
I thought of my own battles, and how I was lying wounded and dying, needing a spiritual “medic” to carry me to safety and care for my wounds. To be sure, a few were there. Thank God for them, they are the only reason I’m alive today. Calvin, Jim, Kelly, Mom, Jon, Garry, wouldn’t leave me there to die. I have a battle scar, large and ominous that I see daily, where the doctor cut out a cancer that was destroying my body. The scars that are the worst are those unseen, because they are deep within my soul and spirit! Some of them from those who were supposed to be my Lt. Col., yet they left me to my bleeding!
I no longer harbor the resentment that plagued me so deeply, but have found peace in forgiveness and grace. I’m not much of a preacher, and certainly not qualified to be the Lt. Col. or even a buck private, but now I consider myself a “medic,” and this I promise, I will never turn a deaf ear to the call of the wounded soldier, whether it be in the heat of battle, or in the quiet of the jungle night! I will not hold back and give in to my own fears while another bleeds and dies!!! There will be no more bleeding and dying soldiers left on the field on my watch!!!! So Help Me God!!!!
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