When they handed me the envelope I felt my heart sink. It was my job to hand-carry the dead soldier’s personal affects as I escorted him to his final resting place. At that time I didn’t know that one particular soldier had crawled on his hands and knees through the Afghan dirt until he had found all but the wedding band. I didn’t know that this soldier knew exactly how much change the fallen soldier had in his pocket or that when he finally found his wooden cross it was hanging in a tree. I just knew that the package felt heavy and that the dead soldier was my twin brother.
When the funeral director opened the casket and left the room I didn’t know that my little brother Stephen would straighten his life out or that our childhood friend would give his life to Christ. I didn’t know that there was a soldier in Afghanistan so impacted by Forrest that he refocused his life for Christ before dying a month later. All I knew was that there was lint on his bronze star. I gently removed it.
When the final bugle note faded and the crowd dispersed I found myself in a place I had never been before a place of solitude before God. My twin brother, my constant companion, had gone on ahead of me to heaven. It was time for my faith to truly become my own in a way it hadn’t before.
The two-year anniversary of that mountain ambush has come and gone and I feel keenly the lack of control for myself and my other two brothers who are in the Army. I have the same job as Forrest the same rank. Will my life end soon as his did? Will my brothers? No matter the answer, we choose put our lives on hold while we serve our country.
Forrest once said, “Open your eyes and you will see, there is more to God than you believe.” My faith sometimes feels blind, but I know Forrest was right. God is orchestrating more than I can even imagine, even if I can’t see it.
Lord, help me to trust that you are using all things in my life to somehow bring yourself glory.
“And we know that all things work together for good for those that love God.” (Romans 8:28)