A Mother's Heart in War . . . Day 273, March 6, 2005

The Friday entries of "The Powder Room" are currently from a journal which I started when we found out our son was going to be deployed with the United States Marine Corps to Iraq. The journal was not written with the intention that it would ever be read by anyone else, much less published in any way. There are feelings in the journal that are deep and true and I wasn't sure at first I wanted to share them. But there are many sons and daughters still serving in our armed forces and I think it might be good to share "a mother's heart" with you what those other mothers may be facing. The entries are shared as a tribute to my son and his service to our country, and to all those sons and daughters who continue to willingly place themselves in harm's way for the protection and preservation of liberty.

Day 273, March 6, 2005

Noah is on American soil once again.

What a source of comfort to know my son once again breathes the sweet air of liberty and rests in a place where his freedoms are protected!

Yesterday Emmie and I walked around the neighborhood putting small yellow ribbons on all the lampposts. They are so small that I thought they might not be noticed, but before were were even through, calls started coming in asking if Noah was home.

In another six hours or so, Noah will really be home. The cheesecake is in the fridge and his Christmas stocking is full and hanging on the mantle. The minutes can't tick away fast enough!

How sweet to have all the children home and safe (Marie is on the way home, too!) It is something that makes a mother's heart sing.

Thanks to our Lord for His abundant faithfulness in all we ask.

A Mother's Heart in War . . . Day 269, March 2, 2005

The Friday entries of "The Powder Room" are currently from a journal which I started when we found out our son was going to be deployed with the United States Marine Corps to Iraq. The journal was not written with the intention that it would ever be read by anyone else, much less published in any way. There are feelings in the journal that are deep and true and I wasn't sure at first I wanted to share them. But there are many sons and daughters still serving in our armed forces and I think it might be good to share "a mother's heart" with you what those other mothers may be facing. The entries are shared as a tribute to my son and his service to our country, and to all those sons and daughters who continue to willingly place themselves in harm's way for the protection and preservation of liberty.

Day 269, March 2, 2005

It is March now and we are down to mere days. The plane ticket has been purchased and we just wait.

We want to see Noah, to look into those blue-green eyes and see for ourselves that he is well. We wait to hold Noah and feel for ourselves that he is whole and strong. We wait to listen to Noah and to hear for ourselves that the experience of war has not embittered his spirit, that he can still laugh. We wait to have him home in the safety of this house where the only dangers are that he will sleep past the alarm or use up all the hot water in the shower. But Noah's safety, his "wholeness" has never been a matter of place, location or shelter. It has always been "of the Lord".

How many hundreds, thousands of prayers have been lifted up to our Father specifically for Noah while he has been deployed? The Scriptures tell us that the prayers of the saints are the incense around the throne of God. What a sweet smell must encircle His throne on behalf of our son. And all those prayers gloriously answered! I feel so indebted to so many. . .so many faithful ones who say "I've been praying for Noah." So many more who never say they are praying for him, but do. I will spend part of eternity thanking these kind souls because as yet I do not know all of to whom I am indebted.

In eternity, will I also know how many times an angel of the Lord stayed a bullet? Redirected a rocket? Caused an enemy misfire? Generated confusion in the enemy? I have to believe this happened over and over again and over and over again I thank our Lord for His marvelous supply -- His gracious answer to prayer and His merciful protection. He is worthy to be praised.

A Mother's Heart in War . . . A Mother's Thanks

The Friday entries of "The Powder Room" are currently from a journal which I started when we found out our son was going to be deployed with the United States Marine Corps to Iraq. The journal was not written with the intention that it would ever be read by anyone else, much less published in any way. There are feelings in the journal that are deep and true and I wasn't sure at first I wanted to share them. But there are many sons and daughters still serving in our armed forces and I think it might be good to share "a mother's heart" with you what those other mothers may be facing. The entries are shared as a tribute to my son and his service to our country, and to all those sons and daughters who continue to willingly place themselves in harm's way for the protection and preservation of liberty.

Day 268, March 1, 2005

A Mother's Thanks
(a note sent to all our family and friends)

My greatest fear during Noah's deployment was not for his safety. In the midst of the worst news reports, the Lord has given me such peace and a sense of assurance that my son was safe. So many people have told me that they pray daily for Noah. The magnitude of the answers of those prayers has just begun to dawn on me.

Noah once told us that they were continually shot at and even during his phone calls home, enemy fire was sometimes audible. How amazingly faithful is our God, that my son should return home alive and well. How can I ever thank all those who have at any point uttered a prayer upward on behalf of my son?

Noah is due to be back on American soil this time next week (Praise the Lord) and should be home within a couple weeks after that. I do not have the vocabulary to express what I feel in the way of thankfulness to you for your prayers. Please let a mother's feeble words and flowing tears, (which are there even if you cannot see them) express the heart that cannot be captured in language.

Your prayers for Noah are the greatest gift you could have ever given me. Thank you and thank you and thank you.

frannie

The Gentle Leading

Every morning before I go to work, I can depend upon my sweet beagle Sparrow, to be waiting at my feet for me to go to the dining room.

You see, Sparrow has already been to the kitchen and knows by virtue of that amazing nose the Lord has given her, that there is an egg boiling on the stove top. She has also learned about how long it takes for the egg to cook. When she thinks it has been long enough, or that I have taken long enough in my preparations, she will come to my bedroom, sit at my feet and stare.

She doesn't bark. She doesn't whine. She doesn't whimper. She just watches. If I move to the bathroom, she moves with me. By only her gentle appearance and presence, she is letting me know that it is time to get a move on and head to that egg.

The reason she does this is because she knows the egg is really for her. In the beginning, I only gave her a little bit of the yolk. Then eventually, I gave her all of the yolk. Now, she get's just about the whole egg. (Maybe we should put two eggs in the pot from now on.)

Watching Sparrow the other day as she watched me, I thought of how the Lord moves in our lives. We often expect to see the dramatic, the sensational, the spectacular.

Do you remember when Elijah had decided he was the only believer left in the world and the Lord sent him to the Mount of Horeb? The Lord spoke to Elijah,

"And He said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the LORD. And, behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the LORD; but the LORD was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the LORD was not in the earthquake: And after the earthquake a fire; but the LORD was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice." 1Kings 19:11-12

The Lord was in the still small voice. The meek and gentle. The quiet and small. Yes, for Elijah He used a wind and earthquake and a fire to wake him up out of his self-absorption and depression. Then the Lord gave Elijah the truth of the matter, he wasn't the only believer left in the world, "Yet I have left me seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal, and every mouth which hath not kissed him." I Kings 19:18. The Lord had seven-thousand more believers out there unknown to Elijah.

The point of the matter is that the Lord is in the business of revealing His truth to us, but if we are not in the business of receiving that truth we will not hear His still small voice. If we become self-absorbed, or too centered on the things happening around us, or the faults in others, we will never hear that tiny quiet sound in our spirit. Then it may be, like with Elijah, the Lord may need to use the wind and the earthquake and the fire to get our attention so we are ready to listen to the still small voice.

"My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. " John 10: 27, 28

Gone in a Wisp, a Vapor

I was thinking today about one of those perplexing questions about eternity. . .you know, the type of question that has no answer and begins to hurt your head if you think about it too long. As my brain began to spin with the thinking, I was suddenly struck with another thought:

When we finally reach heaven, all the things we have pondered long and hard, and seem so important here, will probably in reality be so insignificant there.

Image by yourauntjam via Flickr

In all likelihood, it will be like preparing for a wedding. A bride obsesses over so many tiny details that when the day finally approaches, they don't seem to matter so much. After all, does it really matter if the napkins at the reception match the bridemaids dresses perfectly? All the little details seem to fall aside in the joy and happiness of what really is going on that day.

I think when we finally arrive in Heaven, and we first catch a glimpse of that Face that we love more than any other, all the questions and quandaries that have seemed so important here will melt away. The will be gone in a wisp, nothing but a vapor. All that will matter will be our hand in that nail-scarred Hand.

God Gives the Increase

I was listening to a couple of people talk the other day about ministries and missionaries. One asked the other about "seeing fruit" in the lives of the people.

At first that seemed like a reasonable question. Then I began to ponder the idea. When the Apostle Paul talked to the Corinthians about ministry, he said, "I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase." (1 Corinthians 3:6)

It was the Lord responsible for increase, His were the fruit.

Then I began to wonder, just how do you go about judging if you have true fruit? To count the number seems wrong, because you can fill a building with people and still have an empty room as far as a true relationship with the Lord is concerned. We have a friend who says, "God doesn't count the hearts, He measures the

Image via Wikipedia

weight of them."

But it is hard to judge another person's heart, isn't it? It is sort of like trying to decide what is a fruit and what is a vegetable. For years, I just assumed a tomato was a vegetable. After all, it goes in vegetable soup, doesn't it? But since it has seeds inside of itself, in botanical terms, it is a fruit. Okra, which I would have never thought of as a fruit, is a fruit. I understand that Rhubarb, which is considered by some (but never considered by me in any form) to be a fruit, is actually a vegetable. So even in the food we eat, we find it hard to tell what is what.

I think we would do well to leave the judgment part to the Lord. The Apostle Paul told the Philippians, "Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves." (Philippians 2:3). If we have a heart to see each one as "better than" ourselves, and to realize the Lord can teach us something through anyone, we will probably produce more fruit than if we spend time trying to count all the bananas and apples and oranges. Try as we might to give the increase, the harvest is His and we are only the laborers. In all our endeavors, let us have the heart that "whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men" (Col 3:23)

A Mother's Heart in War . . . Day 266, February 27, 2005

The Friday entries of "The Powder Room" are currently from a journal which I started when we found out our son was going to be deployed with the United States Marine Corps to Iraq. The journal was not written with the intention that it would ever be read by anyone else, much less published in any way. There are feelings in the journal that are deep and true and I wasn't sure at first I wanted to share them. But there are many sons and daughters still serving in our armed forces and I think it might be good to share "a mother's heart" with you what those other mothers may be facing. The entries are shared as a tribute to my son and his service to our country, and to all those sons and daughters who continue to willingly place themselves in harm's way for the protection and preservation of liberty.

Day 266, February 27, 2005

Well, Christmas came and went.

We began our morning in prayer for Noah. We had packages to open from Noah, with Marie's help. At dinner we looked at pictures of Noah that I had placed on the table. I think he was more a part of our day than if he had been here with us!

After Christmas I was so disappointed in myself for only taking a minute or two of video - knowing full well that he wanted to see some of our Christmas morning. But somehow the camera got lost in all the trappings of the celebration of Christmas. Little did I know that the camera actually was still running!

When I looked at the video weeks later, I was shocked that even though we only had three or four good minutes of video, we had over twenty minutes of audio of us (along with twenty minutes of video of the side of the blue living room chair).

Emily and I had a good time adding amusing sub-titles to the video. We were full of anticipation for how Noah would respond to our jokes. As for us, the video was so much more about Noah than if we had done it the other way.

Then after Christmas we began to really anticipate Noah's return. To our great pleasure the date was much earlier than we had originally thought. All of a sudden what had seemed so far away, was actually so close.

I began to be overwhelmed with what I had not done. His Christmas presents were not yet wrapped, his quilt was not - and would not soon be - finished. His room was basically a storage unit, it was not ready to be a bedroom again.

Then, beside all the practical things I knew had to be tackled in such a short time, I began to think of all the emotional things. Would we be for Noah what he will need us to be? Will we make his homecoming what he wants it to be? Will we know when to be silent, when to speak, when to laugh, when to cry? Will it be more awkward than I have imagined, or will it be easier? Will things go smoothly between Noah & Aimee?

As I feel apprehension regarding Noah's homecoming, I realize it is because I have absolutely nothing in my past upon which to base this experience. His return from boot camp seems such a pale comparison. The Noah who came home from Parris Island was in so many ways different from the Noah who left.

Maybe that is what I dread.

I fear Noah may have crawled even deeper into a shell from which he can't be extracted. It is a hard thing for a mother to lose her little boy to the man he must inevitably become. It is harder still to lose him to such a strong knit band of brothers as the Marine Corps. I wonder what it is like to lose him to the smoky memories of war? Can the little boy smile ever escape past the memories of killing and death?

As anxious as I am to wrap these mother's ars around my son, I am curious as to the Noah that I will meet that day.

What is Peace?

(Thanks to our dear from Larry for the inspiration for today's Powder Room.)

"Peace is not the absence of problems, peace is having adequate resources in one's problems."

This statement I heard by a teacher today made me think of what we truly want when we say we want "Peace". Often, we are more yearning, like David, "Oh that I had wings like a dove! for then would I fly away, and be at rest." Psalms 55:6. We want to be carried away out of our problems, not strengthened to walk through them.

A life without trouble is not what we have been promised as Christians, and although it sometimes seems sweet to fantasize about what that life would be like, it is a dangerous thing for us to spend much time there. We are called to walk this life, with all it's thorns and snares, and to learn "in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. "

Not only are we called to accept those difficulties, those things we see as trials and troubles in our lives, but the Apostle Paul went so far as to say he "gloried" in them.

"Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong." 2 Corinthians 12:9,10

So when the trouble comes, the trial arises, the thorn begins to rip and tear at our flesh, we can "in every thing give thanks", knowing that "this is the will of God in Christ Jesus" concerning us.

We can thank Him for the very trial, for the situation that will show His strength in our weakness. He is the adequate resources we need for any situation. He is the abundant supply for all our needs. He is that which strengthens and sustains us. We know, too, that we can "do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me." Just as there is no limit to His supply "according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus", there is no limit to what He can and will do in and through His children who choose to thank Him in the difficulties and trust Him as the provision for problem, the supply for every situation, the answer for every absence.

Avoir confiance en le Seigneur toujours

et L'ayant nous a tout.

Trust in the Lord always,
and having Him, we have all.

God Leads Us Along

Yesterday I talked about how the Lord had worked in my life over and over again to direct my path. I thought today I would share with you one of my favorite hymns that follows those thoughts. It is written by George Young.

In shady, green pastures, so rich and so sweet,
God leads His dear children along;
Where the water’s cool flow bathes the weary one’s feet,
God leads His dear children along.

Some through the waters, some through the flood,
Some through the fire, but all through the blood;
Some through great sorrow, but God gives a song,
In the night season and all the day long.

Sometimes on the mount where the sun shines so bright,
God leads His dear children along;
Sometimes in the valley, in darkest of night,
God leads His dear children along.

Some through the waters, some through the flood,
Some through the fire, but all through the blood;
Some through great sorrow, but God gives a song,
In the night season and all the day long.

Though sorrows befall us and evils oppose,
God leads His dear children along;
Through grace we can conquer, defeat all our foes,
God leads His dear children along.

Some through the waters, some through the flood,
Some through the fire, but all through the blood;
Some through great sorrow, but God gives a song,
In the night season and all the day long.

Away from the mire, and away from the clay,
God leads His dear children along;
Away up in glory, eternity’s day,
God leads His dear children along.

Some through the waters, some through the flood,
Some through the fire, but all through the blood;
Some through great sorrow, but God gives a song,
In the night season and all the day long.

Image by happyskrappy via Flickr

When we went to Washington, D.C. several years ago, we spent one day walking around the Tidal Basin visiting the various monuments. As we continued, my feet became hot and tired. We neared the FDR monument and I dreaded visiting what I anticipated to be a boring monument of a President about whom I knew little.

I was amazed to see that FDR's monument was actually a series of four monuments each composed of waterfalls and pools of flowing water.

We took the opportunity to slip off our shoes and cool our feet in the flowing water. We found ourselves refreshed and renewed. It is a slight shadow of the refreshing and renewal offered to us by our Lord in any of the parched and wearied situations which greet us during our days.

I Need a Plan

"I NEED A PLAN!"

Image by Scorpions and Centaurs via Flickr

It was a desperate cry from one of the elderly women in the church services we do at a local nursing home. She was referring to the order of service for the day which also has the words to the hymns on it. She had not yet received one and we were ready to sing. What profound truth issued so adamantly from Mrs. Morris. We all are in need of a plan.

Currently, I am in the process of making vacation plans for us later this spring. There are so many plans that must be made prior to a 23 hour car ride to a city one has never been to before. . .hotel reservations, rental car reservations, ideas of where to eat, tickets to different venues, and driving directions. The details seem to go on and on.

The same is true for our very lives, and we think we are in control of those plans. Perhaps we think we made the plan of where to go to school, or whom we should marry, or what profession we should pursue. The Scriptures, however, tell us something different:

"The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD: and he delighteth in His way. " Psalms 37:23

The Lord has a way of directing and leading His children. As I look backward at the path my life has taken, I can see so many times that the Lord has nudged me, led me, and sometimes, yes, even pushed me into the path He wanted me to go. Often at the time it didn't seem like the working of the Lord. Sometimes it felt like the whole world was against me, but now I can see clearly His hand moving to put me exactly where He knew I needed to be, but I was too stubborn or too blind to see.

The greatest example of this was when I "decided" to go to nursing school.

Never in my life had I wanted to be a nurse. I had planned to go to college away from home, first to pursue Journalism. A well-meaning family member discouraged me from this so I decided to become a teacher. About a month before I was to move away, again I changed my mind and decided to stay home instead.

Now in my hometown were three colleges with perfectly good programs for studying Education. However, instead of enrolling in one of them, I just pronounced, "I guess I'll go to nursing school." Where did THAT come from? I believe with all my heart that it came from the Lord.

To understand just how dramatic this declaration of mine truly was, you must know in high school I never took Chemistry. I never even took a real Algebra class. (Why would a journalist need Chemistry or Algebra was my thought.)

So here I was, in the middle of the summer, having to find a Chemistry class so I could get into the nursing program. It wasn't offered in Summer School --there were no Chemistry teachers available that summer. It wasn't offered at Night School -- there weren't enough students interested to offer the class. Which meant I had to take a college Chemistry course. The professor handed out a pre-test the first day of class that was mainly algebra problems. I didn't even understand the questions, much less have an idea of how to get to the answers! Only the Lord managed to get me through that class!

That first year of college, taking most of my college classes before entering the nursing program and my clinical studies, was truly a design from the Lord. Little was I to know that by my second year of college I would have met the man I was to end up marrying. I was so wildly in love that I could never have been able to keep my mind on all those classes AND nursing classes as well as the love of my life.

Time and time again, I can look back at my life and see the Lord working. Sometimes the path has gone through the dark of the forest, but still it was His path and His hand that led me. Sometimes the path led through the bright sunshine of day with the clear blue sky. Again, His path and His hand.

Throughout it all I have learned that whether I understand the turn in the path or not, I can completely trust the Architect of the Road. As the Scriptures tell us, "His way is perfect." So as one company encourages us to do, I will "leave the driving" to Him.


"In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths". Proverbs 3:6