Genesis 28:15 – "I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you."
All he wanted was to go back home. John was on his 3rd tour of duty in Iraq. He re-enlisted after his first tour ended, because he believes in what he is fighting for. He loved his job, really. Helping children and widows, keeping people safe, doing his small part to establish freedom and democracy in a country long held captive by the tyranny of dictatorship made John proud to be an American. His parents fled the killing fields of Cambodia and John knew just how fortunate he was to have grown up in a country of peace and freedom.
It was just this one day, while on patrol with his unit of the first battalion of the 1st U.S. Marine expeditionary force- Charlie Company- that he wished he were back in this land- planted firmly on American soil.
It was a Sunday afternoon in Karbalah when a homicide bomber detonated his payload next to a soccer field of playing children, just between the field and a marketplace of vendors. The force of the bomb was so strong, it could be felt a mile away. The Marines arrived on scene to find women and young boys strewn across the edges of the field- a bloody and grizzly scene that once again became all too familiar to soldiers after some months of peace and calm. Searching for survivors, for breathing children or mothers, John turned over the body of a woman to find an infant beneath her. Wrapped in a blanket, clutched to her mother’s chest, the baby was bleeding from her shoulder, and though unconscious, was alive.
A wave of emotions came over him as he yelled out to the medics to come and help. His daughter, back home, was just about that age, with the same angelic features. In that moment he wished he was home- not just to hug his daughter who was safe and sound- but because he wondered how much longer he would have to summon the strength to face and confront everyday the evil in Iraq that could justify attacks on women and children- even beautiful infants fresh from the hand of God.
A medic tapped John on the shoulder, breaking through his thoughts as he looked across the scene to survey the work his men were doing. The medic held the child up, wrapped now in a clean blanket, and put her in John’s arms. "Hurry, we need to get her to the hospital," he was told. Quickly John shifted back to the work at hand, because the question, he realized, was not whether he would have the strength to face this again day in and day out- but rather, if not him, who?
Bombs go off everyday in the life of some Christian, somewhere. It could be the bomb of hearing from your doctor that you have cancer. It could be the bomb of finding out from your teenaged son that he got his girlfriend pregnant. It might be the bomb of having your house burned to the ground by west coast wild-fires. Whatever it is, the questions we ask are similar: "Why did this happen to me? How am I going to make it through this? Where am I going to get the strength to deal with this and take care of my family too? Will our lives ever get back to normal?"
In these "bomb attacks" of life, we have God’s promise, "I will watch over you wherever you go." God is watching over John, and He watches over us too. Things don’t always go as smoothly as we hope, and life is not without its pains and struggles, but God will never leave us. God follows through on his promises to us- to the very end- and our strength is in Him and His promise that he is always watching over us no matter what happens.
