I remember changing the surgical dressing on my brother’s back in 1968. The wound was still leaking from the hole caused by shrapnel he’d been hit with during an explosion at the DMZ. I remember his saying to me, “Fool, (It was a term of endearment between brothers.) don’t go into the military, because they tried to kill me over there.”
I’m not sure what he was thinking when he joined at seventeen. He probably wasn’t considering the fact that Marines have been recognized for their wounds and deaths in service to their country for over two centuries. The reality of that decision landed him in a Naval hospital in the summer of ‘68.
It reminds me of the Christian experience. When we enter in by the new birth, the reality of the fight that will follow is completely unknown, but will present itself in time.
A hymn puts it like this:
I AM A WOUNDED SOLDIER
BUT I WILL NOT LEAVE THE FIGHT
BECAUSE THE GREAT PHYSICIAN IS HEALING ME
SO I’M STANDING IN THE BATTLE
IN THE ARMOR OF HIS LIGHT
BECAUSE HIS MIGHTY POWER IS REAL IN ME
For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
Share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus.
Give it some thought and be there for your brother and sister in arms.
Gary