Sharing Quotes

I just finished reading a book, 'Grace Under Fire: Letters of Faith in Times of War', edited by Andrew Carroll. It was fabulous! (I highly recommend you to read it.) Lately, I've been doing a lot of thinking and praying regarding our nation's involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. I have opinions; however, I do not know enough, nor have I prayed or studied enough, to feel comfortable and confident sharing those here. I would like to include an excerpt from the book though. Food for thought and fodder for conversation. Either way, I pray we don't forget our guys and gals over there. I hope that you'll join me in praying for them daily, if you're not already doing so. Continue to seek to find ways to be a light and encouragement to those facing trials and struggles we cannot fathom.

"Dear Reverent:

... ever since I volunteered I've felt like a cog in a huge wheel. The cog may get smashed up, but the machine goes on, and I know I share in the progress of that machine whether I live or die, and that seems to make everything all right. Except, perhaps, when I lose a pal, it's generally one of the best but yet it may be one of the worst. And I can't feel God is in it.

How can there be fairness in one man being maimed for life, suffering agonies, another killed instantaneously, while I get out of it safe? Does God really love us individually or does He love His purpose more? Or is it better to believe he makes the innocent suffer for the guilty and that things will be squared up some day when those who have escaped sufffering here will suffer, and those who have suffered here will escape suffering. Sounds rather calculating, doesn't it, and not a bit like the love of a Father.

What I would like to believe is that God is in this war, not as a spectator, but backing up everything that is good in us. He won't work any miracles for us because that would be helping us to do the work He's given us to do on our own. I don't know whether God goes forth with armies but I do know that He is in lots of our men or they would not do what they do.... (italics mine)

Yours sincerely,

Pvt. Walter T. Bromwich

Company A 6th U.S. Engineers AEF"

~~ Excerpt from: Carroll, Andrew, ed. Grace Under Fire: Letters of Faith in Times of War. New York, NY: Doubleday, 2007. $16.95 pp. 23-24