Finding Peace in a Dangerous World
*This piece originally appeared in the 2016 MOPS International publication, Searching for Stars, a devotional for military moms. For more info about MOPS Intl, please visit MOPS.org.
When she tearfully opened her front door I was standing there holding a casserole. Earlier that day, the vehicle her husband was riding in hit a roadside bomb while on patrol in Afghanistan. Her husband had received a hard blow to his head and needed further evaluation for his serious concussion. Two other squad mates were killed in the attack. She was understandably distraught, and as a fellow unit spouse, I was asked to go over to her house and be her first contact after the incident. Even though our husbands worked together and we lived on the same street, I had only spoken to this woman once or twice in passing. She had chosen not to participate in any unit activities, even the essential pre-deployment briefings. As we sat at her kitchen table she told me how her coping mechanism to deal with the dangerous nature of her husband’s job was to convince herself he was a “traveling vacuum salesman.” She achieved this by telling her husband she didn’t want to know anything about his military unit, where he was going or what he might be doing, and he complied with her wishes. As we sat and cried together, the consequences of her short sighted plan was painfully obvious. Faced with the possibility of a monumental life change for her family, she now wanted and needed to know all the information the rest of us had processed over months and years. Her strategy had shielded her from the fear and anxiety of the deployment until suddenly life intervened and she was forced to confront her new reality.
Our military husbands do dangerous business in dangerous places. How does one face this fact day after day without being overcome by fear of what may happen? Philippians 4:6-7 tells us “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” God promises that if we ask him to help us with our fears he will give us peace. And not just peace of mind, but a peace within our soul that cannot be explained in any human terms. God may not remove the inherent danger our husband’s may face, but God will give us a depth of comfort and peace only he can provide, even on the darkest of days.
