God Can When You Can't!

God Works in Wondrous Ways – Yes, he really does. Many of you know that, in the past, I’ve had two sons in the Marine Corps. One chose to make a career out of the Corps. The other gladly served his time and then got out.


It is tough on any family who has a loved one in a combat zone. In the day of instant news, when everyone has a camera on their cell phone and when pictures and video from the other side of the world, can appear on your computer screen as they happen, there is nowhere to hide from the violence that happens so suddenly unless a person chooses to disconnect from communications entirely.
Well, with two sons in the service it was bound to happen sooner or later. There came a time when they were both going to be in Iraq at the same time. Due to deployment schedules and the fact that one was stationed in Hawaii and the other in North Carolina the two had not seen each other in several years. We had hoped to get them home for Christmas and get the special Christmas photo with both of them and their dress blues, but the opportunity never presented itself. In fact, we had never seen the two of them together in any form of official military dress.

Walt, the older one, was headed out of Iraq after completing his second tour. Alex was headed into Iraq for his second one. We had hoped there would be an opportunity for them to see each other. The Marine Corps had promised they would do what they could, but we knew it would be a God thing if it happened at all.

One evening the phone rang. It was Alex. He was at the Al Asad AFB staging for deployment in the Al Anbar province. He was in the middle of a huge tent city – hundreds of them, enough to house a whole battalion. He was trying to give us an address, but the best he could do was to say that he was in tent #36. We wished him well, told him we loved him, and promised to pray for him. That’s all a parent can do. However, God can always do more.

About 30 minutes later Walt called. He was in Al Asad as well with his battalion getting ready to come home. He said he had been looking for Alex all day, but there were so many tents he had no clue where to look. Try #36.

God is good. He takes care of things when we have no resources to meet the challenge. This remains the only picture of the two of them together in uniform. I love it dearly.

Pastor Craig
 
P.S. For those of you who are wondering, Alex is on the left and Walt is on the right!