Another deployment is looming over our heads, I have been pushing it to the back of my thoughts for months now, and yet I simply cannot ignore it anymore. What was once a shadow of things to come has become large and black and terrifying and simply cannot be ignored, it will no longer fit into the bag I carry, where I stuff the things that bring me fear.... so I must confront it.
I thought I was ready for this one, after all, we have done this before, and it should get easier each time right? I was wrong; I am far less ready than I was for the first one. I have a very bad feeling about this one. Is that a premonition or is it simply my fears playing games with me? I truly do not know.
I pray and pray, and yet cannot find peace with this feeling. Over and over in my mind plays a phrase right out of the King James Bible...."gird up your loins"... What does this mean? God, are You trying to tell me something? Trying to prepare me for something? I do not want to listen if You are; I want to shut out that voice. Why is that phrase in my head? Is it something stuck there from some old sermon I listened to? I continue to ponder. .
If the voice is You Lord, should I not feel some peace? Or is my lack of peace my failure to listen an acknowledge Your warning? Is it even possible to have peace with such a thing bouncing around in your head? If it is You, are you telling me to prepare for something bad, or just to be ready for the deployment?
I am not a weak woman, not prone to tears. All my life I have pushed forward, through the good and the bad, but this I believe thus far is the most difficult time of my life. I am helpless, unable to stop the events of the world as they play out, unable to go in place of my son, unable to protect him, I am truly at my most helpless, for I must rely upon my God, my faith in Him, and upon the training my son has received, and upon his brothers who walk with him. Perhaps that is my problem, I have always faced my fears by action, sure I pray for guidance, for peace, for intervention...but I go and act.... and there is no action for this one other than to fall to my knees and pray.
I dread this deployment; dread it to the very depths of my soul. Dread the waiting, dread that horrible feeling in the pit of your stomach when you know that one has fallen, is it mine? Oh God let it not be mine, Oh God let him be okay, and then you hear the news, you see the name, it is not yours.... oh such relief, such joy...but only for a moment. Then comes guilt and sorrow, how can I rejoice for the life of mine, when somewhere a woman, just like me, falls to the floor in agony and grief. Oh God I hate that feeling.
All these emotions take place inside, in private, I have not found many who understand who have not walked it, it is pointless to speak of it, pointless to try and describe it, it truly seems that unless you have been there, people, no matter how close they are to you simply cannot understand.
Everyone that knows anything at all about the military, knows that our Infantry troops have a difficult job, they patrol paths laden with bombs, they fight it out with our enemies, they kick in doors, they live and work in tough conditions, blazing hot temperatures, laden with clothing and equipment, or freezing cold temperatures, where they are damp and cold. They sleep in holes. They eat a lot of MRE's. Miles and miles of running and fighting, laden with gear, running through fields where any step might be your last. They are tough, and we are very proud of them, their strength, their courage, their dedication to each other and to their mission, their tenacity, their will.....and yet consider for a moment the role of the Infantry wife, the Infantry mother, the Infantry child..we must go about our daily business, keep the faith, go to work, to school, to church and do all this knowing that our sons, our husbands, our fathers are right now at the moment we are working, or learning, or worshiping..at that moment...in harm's way, perhaps walking through a field laden with IED's, perhaps under fire from the Taliban.
One thing is certain, as we draw closer to the dreaded day, one thing is clear, one thing is unshaken, one thing I can draw upon for strength...God is in control...He reigns...He loves this child of mine far more than I...He holds all things in the palm of His hand...He lives...and because He lives, I can face tomorrow, because He lives, I can face this deployment, with grace, with strength, with hope and with peace.
When my son leaves, he will once again wear about his neck a silver necklace, it shows the footprints of the Lord in the sand, and about it's edges it says "Lord be with me in my time of need" upon the back is engraved:
Psalm 144:1,
Godspeed son
All our love and prayers
Mom and Dad
Psalm 144
1 Blessed be the LORD, my rock,
who trains my hands for war,
and my fingers for battle;
2 he is my steadfast love and my fortress,
my stronghold and my deliverer,
my shield and he in whom I take refuge,
who subdues peoples under me.
3 O LORD, what is man that you regard him,
or the son of man that you think of him?
4 Man is like a breath;
his days are like a passing shadow.
5 Bow your heavens, O LORD, and come down!
Touch the mountains so that they smoke!
6 Flash forth the lightning and scatter them;
send out your arrows and rout them!
7 Stretch out your hand from on high;
rescue me and deliver me from the many waters,
from the hand of foreigners,
8 whose mouths speak lies
and whose right hand is a right hand of falsehood.
9 I will sing a new song to you, O God;
upon a ten-stringed harp I will play to you,
10 who gives victory to kings,
who rescues David his servant from the cruel sword.
11 Rescue me and deliver me
from the hand of foreigners,
whose mouths speak lies
and whose right hand is a right hand of falsehood.
12 May our sons in their youth
be like plants full grown,
our daughters like corner pillars
cut for the structure of a palace;
13 may our granaries be full,
providing all kinds of produce;
may our sheep bring forth thousands
and ten thousands in our fields;
14 may our cattle be heavy with young,
suffering no mishap or failure in bearing;
may there be no cry of distress in our streets!
15 Blessed are the people to whom such blessings fall!
Blessed are the people whose God is the LORD!
Godspeed my son and Godspeed to all those who stand with you. God bless our Infantry, both Army and Marines, God keep them, God grant them all strength and courage. God bring them home safe.
God bless all our troops.
Update: 2013 It was indeed a rough deployment. Lives were lost, limbs were lost, innocence and peace of mind were lost. Our son was wounded, and we received a phone call that dropped me to my knees. The silver necklace described in the above post now rests about the neck of our deceased daughter in law, who took her own life in March of 2013. I see her as a victim of these wars, the horrors of deployment took a heavy toil upon her. My son suffers from severe PTSD, and almost a year after this deployment ended he has still not returned all the way home.
