The Cape Comes Off...

As does the training wheels.

Almost exactly three years ago, a soldier working in a position I didn't even understand enabled me to finally join a unit after a year of limbo. I sat down in his office hundreds of times for advice and counsel, and he generous eased me more fully into the military culture. He took me under his wing, and is responsible for several chaplains getting their start besides me. He was an expert of experts, a man of supreme competence and character, who earned my title of affection "Chief Chief." My wife knows him by the same name. For risk of publicizing this soldier, I cannot give any further details. I can only say that I had the incredibly painful responsibility to take the man who welcomed me into the unit and escort him out of it, due to unconfirmed allegations. My friend and mentor--the last who I would suspect of any detrimental contact and the one on whom I hoped to lean over the course of this deployment--is gone.

These are the unplanned contingencies that I must always be ready for as a chaplain. In a sense, I'm never ready. But by the grace of God, I will always persevere through whatever I am called to do, even if it means sending the friend responsible for my career on his way. I grieve, but as one with hope.

I continue to be amazed by the thoughtful conversations that attend time with soldiers. Their level of introspection and intellectual curiosity is unparalled, in my experience. My rapport with them deepens, as does my affection. Of course, the best part of all of this is that most conversations--whether centered on intellectual abstractions or circumstances--find a resting place in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The average soldier has a profound appreciation for the brokenness of the world and human nature. In this spirit of sobering realism, they reflect deeply on what God-ordained hope might remedy the defects of human nature.

Psalm 42:3 "My tears have been my food all day and night, while they say all the day long 'Where is your God?'"

As the blind find a justification for their rebellion against God in difficult circumstances, I go back to the previous verse, "When shall I come and appear before my God?" In following the chain of brokenness, my question is not "Where?" but "When?" Hard circumstances do not negate the reality of the living God, but draw our hearts to the hope that can only come from Him. And He, in His mercy, sent His Son to weep over the grave, cry out "Why have you forsaken me?" and then embrace the death that brings me life. I ask "When?" because the "Where?" was answered indelibly on a cursed Roman cross.

May you be blessed in His infinite mercy, my friends.

Greetings, friends.

I received some encouraging words from an NCO yesterday that helped define why I am here on this mission and what it is that God has called me to do. He described how hard it was to leave behind his seven year old daughter. The first time he tried to leave, she melted down. He ended up bringing her to the deployment ceremony and thankfully had a better send-off than anticipated. After that first melt down, he was a mess. There is nothing that penetrates a daddy's heart more than a child screaming and crying "Daddy, don't go."

This NCO told me that in a recent heart-to-heart, he and his wife decided that if CH Roberts was strong enough to leave his little boy, then he could be strong enough to leave his precious girl. What poignant and overwhelming words.

Yet there is no room for pride. What this NCO will learn is that I'm not strong enough. I never have been and never will be. Ordinary human strength wilts under the pressures of suffering. If I relied upon myself this year, while absorbing the heart-wreching stories of my soldiers, I would be a shell of a man upon my return. Thanks be to God that I have an omnipotent and gracious Father in Heaven who has sealed and secured my life to Jesus Christ. Because I belong body and soul, in life and death, to Jesus (and remember that fact), I will not wilt, but grow and even thrive for the sake of my soldiers, family, friends, and ultimately, the glory of my God.

I am doing two things right now to be strengthened in the grace that is mine in Christ Jesus: (1) memorize Scripture, so it will be hidden in my heart, and (2) journal my thoughts and prayers as I meditate on these passages in light of the present realities they speak into. Over the past two days, I have memorized and meditated upon Psalm 42:1-2:

"As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God?"

This spirit of daily dependence upon our sovereign God must be mind. Objectively, this thirst is a part of my soul (and every other). As Augustine once said, "Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in God." Yet, I want this thirst to be a more subjective drive for me, not only a fact of life. And I rejoice to know that when I spend time in His Word and in prayer, I am coming before the living God of grace. I come to a Savior who has given me springs of living water welling upon into eternity from which to drink. And the beautiful thing is, by His empowering Spirit, the more I drink and become satisfied, the more I continue to thirst for even greater satisfaction in Him.

Prayer Requests: (1) For Lindsey and Seth to both grow in grace. (2) For my soldiers in this period of transition anguish to activity. (3) For wisdom as to when to act and speak and when not to. (4) For leading a prospective Bible study one night this week, and a chapel service for North Fort Hood next Sunday at the chapel.

Yours in His Grace Alone,
Stephen