Over a year ago (I can't believe it has been that long), I was transported from a barren wasteland of a post in central California to a posh hotel in San Francisco, and learned something of humility in the process.
The wifey and I had just returned from a wonderfully difficult trip to Malawi and I recuperated for about a day at home before I took off again to join the rest of my unit in California for three weeks of training. The conditions at this post were meant to simulate our newly announced destination of Afghanistan, though in many ways they were quite a bit more modest than even this poorest of countries.
I had seen God work powerfully through my weakness and through my wife in Malawi, and now, barely recovered from my mysterious illness in Malawi, I was thrust into incredibly long, hot, dust-choked days that concluded with my favorite part--an hour or two of late-night discussions in the sleeping tents.
The wifey was suddenly hit with a family crisis of sorts, and in my rare moments of freedom from activity, I tried to console her over the phone as best I could. I reminded her of God's grace to us in Malawi and spoke from a sense of His grace in sustaining me in the long, exhausting hours in the wasteland.
But then my own cage was rattled by something much more superficial than the ordeal that my wifey was working through. One of our officers was experiencing profound pain in his head, and after a preliminary x-ray revealed what looked like a giant mass on his brain, he was rushed to a hospital in San Francisco. I followed behind in a van, along with two other soldiers.
This would seem to most like a wonderful opportunity to care for a soldier, get some needed rest, and see a great city on the Army's dime. I'm not like most. The truth, and I'm ashamed to admit it, is that I tend to hate myself when I'm left with myself and my thoughts. I hate the ravages of sin on my thoughts, words, and deeds, and can quickly grow depressed when I consider how far short I fall of the glory of God.
When I'm ragged from service, I forget myself and get caught up in the work of God in the lives of others. When I'm comfortable and secluded, I remember myself and forget the work of God in me.
I had my own hotel room in San Francisco (at the discounted Army rate), overlooking the bay, courtesy of Army funds. I cared for the threatened soldier each day, but did so out of an increasingly angry and callous heart. I was missing out on my evening talk times with soldiers and found no joy in the nauseating drive down Lombard Street or eating overpriced seafood on the wharf.
We ended up staying for several days as we awaited results, and when the results finally came in, my entourage decided on a scenic jaunt on the way back through San Jose. Again, I was miserable (though I was good at masking it). When we got back to the wasteland post, my desk was gone and the tents were all being taken down. Annual training was over. And I was mad at the situation, and indirectly, at God.
Yet, when I look back on that unwelcome detour to San Francisco, the enduring memory is not of my sin or selfishness. Rather, the memory that will never leave my mind came with the arrival of this threatened soldier's wife. They had been married for well over a decade and had a number of kids. I was not sure what to expect when she arrived. As soon as she shadowed the door of the hospital room, she dropped everything she was holding, ran over to bed, climbed in next to her husband, and put her head on his chest and closed her eyes. Neither of them spoke. It was one of the sweetest things I had ever seen.
And whenever my mind is transported back to that day, in that room, on that hospital bed, it is then shuttled through dozens of later memories--tender moments between married couples, the glassy eyes of a widow at a military funeral, the references of an elderly man to his wife as "his bride." I marvel that God would plant such a gift as marriage within this world--to show in that precious husband-wife bond an imperfect image of His love for His Church and to leave us with the precious knowledge that "love is strong as death" (SoS 8:7-7).
At the close of that trip to San Francisco, we received the happy diagnosis of a harmless fluid sac alongside this man's brain that was not in the slightest sense dangerous. His brain was healthier than my heart, which struggles to grasp the extent of God's love and grace for me in Jesus Christ. His marriage was stronger than my hope, which often attaches itself to escape from the realities of my sin, rather than refuge in Christ.
I did not know then that despite absolute denials, there would be clever ways of getting me on that roster to Afghanistan, and those ways would be pursued by gracious leaders who wanted me with my unit. Within ten months, I would be gone. Thank God that these memories of His grace have not also fled.
