ChristianMilitaryWives

by Kathy Guzzo

After Flag Day last year, I was thinking about what the flag represents not just to Americans as a whole, but to me as an individual. Four words immediately came to mind; strength, unity, liberty (freedom) and of course hope. America’s 200 plus years are described in those four words, and we would not be the country we are if we took away even one of them.Later reflecting on those same thoughts, my mind went a different direction. I changed the focus of those four words from being what our Flag represents to our country, to seeing how those same four words represent who and what our Heavenly Father is to us,  Think about it:

Strength:  Psalm 46:1
“God is our refuge and strength, an ever present help in trouble.”

Unity: Romans 15:5
“May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you a spirit of unity among yourselves as you follow Christ Jesus.”

Liberty: 2 Corinthians 3:17
“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.”

Hope: Psalm 25:5
“Guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior and my hope is in you all day long.”

So although as Americans and military families the hearing of these words may impact us greatly because they represent foundational ‘things’ in our country;  as followers of Jesus, these words should have an even greater impact, because they are not just things, they are actions. They represent what He is and always will be: Our Strength, Our Unity, Our Liberty, and Our Hope. Just four simple words, but with God behind them, they become mighty!

Kathy Guzzo is a mom of a Marine and leader of Hope @ Home, a group of women with loved ones in the military.

This post originally appeared at www.faithdeployed.com.

by Donna Tallman

Note from Jocelyn: This is the third devotion from Donna in a series I’m posting this week to honor the upcoming Memorial Day holiday.

Gently and quietly he clicks the door shut on his sedan so that even the breeze is unruffled. He deliberately walks toward the oldest row of graves in Section 60. His perfect posture looks military-trained, while the lines on his face mark him Vietnam era. Always focused forward, the eyes of the man in his sixties hone in on one of the markers at the far end. Finally, he reaches the right one and slowly kneels in the grass. The grieving father bows his head.  

Some have said that hospital waiting rooms are the great equalizers of life – that injury and sickness recognize no social class, no ethnic divide, and no age category. All are equally at risk. Cemeteries are even more equalizing than waiting rooms. None recovers here.

The father does not tarry long at his son’s grave. He’s not really here to visit him. Instead, he has come to care for the living. While no one else dares interrupt a widow’s vigil out of respect for her grief, the father does. This tender, caring man can approach where others never should. He is a fellow sufferer, a tempest traveler…one who knows first hand the cost of war.

The father begins his rounds of visitation to the daughters he has adopted in the graveyard. He knows each one by name and checks on their welfare. Over the months they have all visited Arlington to grieve alone together; this unlikely group has grown from being intimate strangers among the tombstones, to caretakers of one another’s sorrow.

While he knows that he cannot bring his son home from Afghanistan, the father seeks to heal the history death attempts to write in each of their hearts. Rising above his own agony, he reaches out to care for those around him, and in the process, finds refuge for his own soul.

Yes, Arlington is a graveyard, a place of the dead. It is also a showcase for valor, a field of honor for America’s most courageous soldiers. And for those knit together by the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, Arlington is a place of healing from war’s ultimate sacrifice.

“He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds” (Psalm 147:3).

Prayer: When life’s raging tempest threatens to break my heart and my spirit, would you, oh Lord, step in with Your authority and restore calm to the churning waves around me? Deliver me and bind up any wounds incurred by my sojourn here on earth.

*This devotion is an excerpt from Stories of Faith and Courage from the War in Iraq and Afghanistan (AMG Publishers, fall 2009), which I co-authored with Jane Hampton Cook and John Croushorn. Order your copy from Amazon.com.

Jocelyn Green is also the author of Faith Deployed: Daily Encouragement for Military Wives and maintains a Web site for military wives at www.faithdeployed.com.

by Donna A. Tallman

Note from Jocelyn: This is the second devotion from Donna in a series I’m posting this week to honor the upcoming Memorial Day holiday. (Read the first devo, “Free Because of Sacrifice,” here.) This is a very powerful piece- if you would rather not read it, I understand, but consider reposting the link to help others to better grasp the sacrifices required of both military members and those who love them.

A caisson rides by and I leave to follow it to the next funeral. Just across the road a sign reads, “Section 61.”  It is a massive parcel of uncultivated dirt growing only two lone trees. As I wonder why an empty lot sits nearby, the top of the Washington Monument peeks above the small rise holding its breath, waiting for my realization.

“O God, the next war!”  

I steady myself as waves of grief overtake me. Before I know it, I have taken out my camera, and am taking pictures so I never forget their sacrifice. I walk by the headstones of many highly decorated service members. There is a middle-age grandmother, a Marine who loves the Boston Red Sox, a team of five soldiers, and a grave marker for a Muslim. I stop to pray for these families and weep for their loss.

The cadre of mourners attending the earlier service has mostly disappeared. In its place a non-organized yet subconsciously synchronized, convoy of mini vans arrives.  A woman gets out of her van, grabs a blanket, lawn chair, and a jug of water before slamming the door. Mounted on the back of her car is a sticker that reads, “Half my heart in Heaven.”  Another mini van arrives, and another. Each van carries a single woman armed with grief and memories.

Her home has betrayed her. It is no longer full of the life and hope of her husband’s return, so she escapes to Arlington to reflect. The widow comes to say the things that she cannot say at home . . . to utter aloud the unspeakable agony of her heart. Surrounded by a field of dead strangers, the widow now feels more at home in a cemetery than she does in her own house. She is tired. She is lonely. She is broken.

In the waning afternoon hours of what has become a typical day, the widow lies face down over her husband’s grave aching to hold and be held. She whispers a prayer of surrender, and asks for the strength for just one more day. Despite the challenges she knows await her, yesterday’s widow rises to conquer her own battle…the battle for her future.

“He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak”  (Isaiah 40:29).

Lord, when I have expended all that I have, remind me that your resources are limitless and you eagerly desire to add your strength to my faith.

*This devotion is an excerpt from Stories of Faith and Courage from the War in Iraq and Afghanistan (AMG Publishers, fall 2009), which I co-authored with Jane Hampton Cook and John Croushorn. Order your copy from Amazon.com.

A little over a month ago I was challenged with the question: "why do you love the military so much?"  At first I was taken back a little, but then I understood that because they had not been exposed to the military the way I had, of course they don't know.

This was my answer, this is why I bleed red, white and blue. As far back as I can remember, I remember my dad coming home to us in uniform. He would rise before the sun came up, and often was not home until the sun was setting. Many wonder why men and women like him subject themselves to such tiring hours and work.  He did it so that other wouldn't have to if they didn't want to. He did it because he felt called to serve our country as his father and grandfather did. He did it because he wanted his family to continue living in a free country. My father joined the Army Chaplaincy so that his soldiers will have a pastor and a brother they can turn to when they need guidance and encouragement. He joined the Army so that we can have liberty and freedom to choose. We get to choose our leaders, who get to vote on our privileges and laws. We get to choose which church to attend or there are those who choose not to attend; we are able to choose what schools we go to, who we marry, and what type of career we want.

I'll never forget the Pledge of Allegiance, or the words to our National Anthem, in fact, I'll probably continue to cry almost every time I hear it. To me, the American Flag will always be the most beautiful flag. It will always represent sacrifice, duty, honor, freedom, and liberty.

I love the military life. Wherever I go, when I see a uniform or family member of a service member, I am reminded of my family, my father and husband and what they represent. Those individuals are family to me. We understand things that no one else quite understands; we've been through things that not everyone else goes through. We know what it is like to have lived in three different countries for several years each, and only speak 10 words in each language. We often whip out our ID cards when asked for our Drivers License’s simply because it is what we have done for so long. We know the meaning of sacrifice. Service members know what it's like to do what many are not willing to do, what many do not appreciate and often take for granted. Families know what it's like to go a year without their loved one’s. The soldiers become a brotherhood, and the families unite as one; regardless of race, religion, or status in the military.

 I know the Army song . . . I know several military songs. I can pick out military personnel in a crowd: the haircut, dog tags, and sometimes just by the way they carry themselves. I know that it takes a special kind of woman to be a military wife, and I know that strong kids come out of military homes.

To some it may not all make sense. Unless you've been there, done that, it probably won't.  I bleed red, white, and blue, because I will always be grateful for the sacrifice my great grandfather made when he fought in Europe in WWII, I will always be grateful for the purple hearts my grandfather earned while fighting in Korea, I will always be grateful for the service my father has done in Somalia, Haiti, and Iraq, and I will always be grateful for my husband’s willingness and desire to serve. The uniform symbolizes freedom, justice, glory, and honor to me. It also symbolizes family.

This week, I am remembering, that for my freedom, someone had to sacrifice something – and maybe everything.

In honor of Memorial Day coming up next Monday, I'm posting this devotion written by Donna Tallman:

Step by determined step I walk on through Arlington Cemetery.  A car passes on my left, then another and another. The procession of mourners drives by in slow motion making its way to the grave site. A color guard stands at attention near a freshly dug grave. A bugler waits for his call, and a squad of seven riflemen stands across the field for their moment of tribute. Cicadas hum just below the surface of unspeakable grief.

I hurry under a tree, not suitably dressed for a funeral nor invited by the family; but here by circumstance in my nation’s field of honor. He is my soldier.

Beautiful in its simplicity, the military funeral proceeds with expected precision.  A minister addresses the young crowd of mourners. The flag covering the soldier’s coffin is folded and given to today’s grieving widow whose two restless toddlers squirm next to her. She bows her head in anguished respect – uncertain the nation is truly grateful for her sacrifice, but so very proud of the hero her husband is. The riflemen give a twenty-one gun salute matched by twenty-one unexpected echoes from another burial in progress on the cemetery grounds. The shots of honor reverberate back and forth across the valley as if to emphasize the sobering cost of freedom.  

The cicadas pick up their song again whirring louder and louder until I feel them pounding in my ears. Looking up through the tree, I see that a helicopter has joined their cacophony giving tribute to this fallen hero. The bugler closes with the mournful notes of “Taps,” hanging onto the last note until it slowly dissolves into history.  

The crowd disperses while I wait under the tree. Stillness returns. Slowly, I begin to walk the uniform rows of gravestones. The magnitude of what we have asked of our soldiers and the grief these families are going through comes quickly into focus. I realize that for the first time ever, I am standing in the graveyard of a war in progress.

“Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends”

(John 15:13).

Prayer: Father, remind me that liberty never travels without its companion, sacrifice, and that sacrifice never travels without love. When I am tempted to forget the sacrifices of others on my behalf, remind me that even You paid the ultimate price for my freedom – the life of your only Son because You loved me.

*This devotion is an excerpt from Stories of Faith and Courage from the War in Iraq and Afghanistan (AMG Publishers, fall 2009), which I co-authored with Jane Hampton Cook and John Croushorn. Order your copy from Amazon.com.

As many of you know, I have been in route to our new home (which because of privacy issues, I will not disclose where home is at right now). 

We left Fort Bragg on Friday morning, unsure of what the future holds - I look at this move as an adventure.

Today, I went in to JoAnne Fabric to purchase yellow ribbon and flags to tie around the trees out front.  The girl at the check out asked me what I planned to do with all of the yellow ribbon.  I told her I was going to tie it around the trees.  She then asked, "what will you be doing with all of these flags so early before the 4th of July?"

I told her Memorial Day was coming up and that I wanted to put flags outside in memorial of our service men and women who have been killed in the line of duty.

She then, the young lady asked another question... "Why would you tie yellow ribbons around your trees?"

I was tired... a little worn down today.  I couldn't believe this girl did not know why I would be tying yellow ribbon around our trees. I gave the shortest answer possible... The yellow ribbons began appearing in large numbers after the Gulf War when we began sending large numbers of troops overseas to the Middle East. For a long time ribbons have been kept as a symbol of remembrance of men and women who are deployed. They have been kept especially by wives, mothers and sisters in times of war in memory of their soldier boys abroad.

To my surprise the girl piped up and said, "I am going to buy some yellow ribbon to put around my big tree out front!"

It's important that we remember we have troops who are still fighting in a very real war.  As we near Memorial Day, its so important that we remember why stores are closed, and why people have the day off of work.