Imagine

Imagine that you have served time in the Air Force and are now a civilian. You've grown up as a Christian, but the church has not been a part of your life for a very long time. The war with Iraq has captured your heart and you sign up with the Army to go and help the cause. You leave behind your fiance, your mother, your job, your life. You go to Iraq and serve your country with pride. While you are in a strange land, a storm crashes ashore near your home. The people with which you serve are worried about family they can no longer contact. Four months later, your time is up, and you get to come ... home. While the rest of the men and women in your unit are arriving home to cheers, signs, balloons, and hugs, you find no one. Your fiance has now connected with someone else and isn't here. Your mother, who has alzheimers disease, doesn't even know you've been out of the country risking your life. She thinks you've been out of state and doesn't know what you've been through. Your job has been washed away. You have no where to live. You had no idea what kind of devastation you would find four months after the storm. Your last paycheck from the Army is held up somewhere in red tape. In order to cope you buy that first bottle of liquor. Days are spent drinking until you can no longer force it down. Pain and confusion give way to numbness. Waking up with a hangover, the cycle begins again because the pain is still there. But in a moment of clarity, you thumb through the phone book and call the church of your childhood. Perhaps someone will answer. David says he will be right over. And that's how we met Scott...a Hurricane Katrina victim of another sort. One of hundreds, maybe thousands of people lost in the debris of what used to be life on the Coast. Scott told me today that in his opinion, what we are going through here on the Coast is worse than what he faced in Iraq. Today he was sober, admitting that he has lots of problems, and perhaps seeing some hope for the future. He is spending time around Christian people. The healing balm of sweet fellowship and grace is ministering to his hurting heart. And today is his birthday. Give him some prayer time tonight as your head rests against your pillow. Life can seem so secure at times ... and at other times ... there is no security other than that which the Lord offers. Scott is one person I met today. I invite you to come and spend some time in the wreckage. It will break your heart, but it will be stronger in the place where it mends. On a personal note: I look around me and see these precious young people who are turning their lives around. They are making major changes that will affect their future forever. They attend local AA meetings and learn to cope with their challenges. Though I know it's not the same, I'm not much different. Tonight I attended my 'recovery group', Weight Watchers. Tomorrow I begin a short-term goal of ten weeks. I've been down this road before, but it's where I need to go.