Proverbs 13:12
Waiting for the plane to land, again. The
phone to ring. Skype to chime. The text to arrive. For those in the Army and
their spouses, these are lifelines. They are the million moments in between the
wave goodbye and the tears of joy and relief. They occupy too many moments for
so many. Moments become minutes that creep along.
After a dangerous mission, the first thing,
often even before a shower, soldiers want to call home. And the spouse knows
that at certain times, that is when the day is done and the contact will
happen.
But what happens when that contact doesn’t
come, the phone doesn’t ring, Skype doesn’t chime, and no text arrives to say “I’m
fine.” At those times hearts often go to the door, the men in uniform ringing
the doorbell with horrible news. And this is repeated day after day during
deployments.
This is an example of hope deferred. And if
you haven’t been there, you really don’t know what it is like. Trust me, you
don’t know. It is not like a business trip in another city. Usually business
trips don’t involve people trying to blow you up or shoot you. (Unless you are
in Chicago!) Business trips don’t involve sleeping with 80 pounds of gear
strapped to your body, curled up on a dirt floor, smelling urine and feces, head
resting on an MRE, just waiting for morning to come. Or the long hours of
silence waiting for the Casualty Notification Team to arrive at your door and
give you the news you hoped would never come, news that ends your life as you
know it.
But when that plane lands and your soldier
marches through the doors of the hanger at the airfield, patriotic music blaring
in the background, screams and cheers deafening all, that is a longing
fulfilled. A few moments of prayer, a speech, and then the word that causes the
masses of family in the bleachers to pour into the center of the hanger to
squeeze the life out of the soldier. You can breathe again.
All of us have moments when we hold our
breath, not sure of the outcome of some event. If our lives get stuck in those
moments of incomplete hopes, we get sick. But when relief comes, life ensures.
It becomes a tree of life.