Memorial Day

He stood there looking over the more than 6400 flags flying in the fading light of sunset.  There was a flag in that field for every soldier who had died the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  There was a flag there for his best friend; there was almost a flag there for him.

I could tell there was something going on deep inside him by the look in his eyes.  He stood there with a camera around his neck but he was not taking any pictures.  There was a big brace on his right knee.  We made eye contact a couple of times before I came over to him and I had the sense that he did not really want to go through what he was experiencing alone.  I walked over and struck up a conversation and his story began to flow out.

He and a friend, had been through multiple deployments in Iraq.  They were in the lead vehicle in a convoy on what should have been a simple mission.  It would be the last mission that he and his friend would go on before they shipped out for home.  Things were going fine, then they were hit by an IED.

What he remembers is sketchy.  But he knew his friend was dead, nearly cut in half.  He knew he was badly hurt himself.  What he didn't remember was his own journey of months in a coma in a military hospital in Germany.  His wife flying there because he wasn't expected to make it.  He did not understand but he was told that he had a traumatic brain injury.  There would be many things that happened after he awakened that he did not remember.  Many of those things - it was good he did not.

He had come to this field to remember his friend and to take a picture. "I can't take a picture of this, it doesn't feel right to do that.  It would not capture what I feel here," he said.  "There is something of my friend here.  Almost something sacred," and then he stood in silence for a moment.

He looked to the large white cross in the middle of the field and said, "It is right that the cross is there in the middle of all this.  It is the only thing that helps it all make any sense."  He told me about his faith in Christ, how he had strayed away from the faith after his first deployment, "I had killed people, some were just kids, I did not feel right. I walked away from God."  Now he confessed, he could not walk through life without Him. 

It struck me as he said that, that there is whole new meaning to the "power of the cross" that I had not thought of before.  It was a memorial marker for a sacrifice and a death, like all the flags, but that one death had the power to change all these other deaths and sacrifices.

He told me more about his friend, how his friend's father had been in the military and had been killed in the first Gulf War and now his friend was dead and had no family left behind.  He cried.  I tried to pray for him and cried too.

We both somehow got through the moment.  He got on his bus and rode back to where he was staying.  As I walked away, I knew this Memorial Day would be different.  He had given me something to remember...a lot to remember.

For the journey...

Tim

No Mistakes

Have you ever wondered if God had not somehow made a mistake?  Have you ever been in a place where you did not understand what God was doing?  It is comforting to me to see that even in the New Testament, the church and the apostles did not always understand what was going on but they faithfully followed.  We will look at a story on Sunday from Acts 12 that surely had the church baffled but in the end, they saw the power of God revealed.

In my wife's family history, there is a time that Judith's grandfather, Rev. A. M. Overton, faced a challenging place in his life and faith, he penned this poem.

   He Maketh No Mistake

My Father's way may twist and turn,
   My heart may throb and ache,
But in my soul I'm glad I know,
   He maketh no mistake.

My cherished plans may go astray,
   My hopes may fade away,
But still I'll trust my Lord to lead,
   For He doth know the way.

Tho' night be dark and it may seem
   That day will never break;
I'll pin my faith, my all in Him,
   He maketh no mistake.

There's so much now I cannot see,
   My eyesight's far too dim;
But come what may, I'll simply trust
   And leave it all to Him.

For by and by the mist will lift
   And plain it all He'll make.
Through all the way, tho' dark to me,
   He made not one mistake.

This Sunday, I will share the story behind this statement of faith and how we too can trust God beyond the place where we understand his will.

For the journey...

Tim

The Barabas Experience

As I read through the New Testament, I had the amazing experience of reading John 18 on the day that I experienced many of the places mentioned in that chapter while on my trip to Israel.  In that chapter of John's account of a day, Jesus crosses the Kidron Valley - I crossed it that day.  He climbed the Mount of Olives, I climbed it that day.  He was arrested, beaten and taken before Pilate.  I stood on first century stones near where Jesus could have stood when he went before Pilate.

In all of it, it hit me anew, that he took my place.  I also stood where Barabas stood, as the guilty one who was let go for Jesus to pay the price and take my place.  I cannot express in words the experience of that day or the new way the truth of his substitutionary death came to me.  I went from knowing about it to knowing it.

That evening, our group went into a stone church built by the crusaders - St. Ann's Church in Jerusalem.  We sang together and one of the hymn's words rang out, "Love so amazing so divine, demands my soul, my life, my heart, my all."

Amen, and amen.

For the journey...

Tim