Walking Wounded

Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.
⁶ In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.

Proverbs 3:5-6

            After thousands of years; world history; from smoke signals to cell phones. We think we are so smart.  Technology has improved the living conditions in the world but human nature has not changed at all.  We think we understand the forces of nature.  Many think they understand God (who would worship a God you can understand?) and a few bright people think they actually understand the neurology of man and man's reactions.

            Every time God speaks to us through a hurricane, earthquake, drought, flood or ferocious tornado, we hear him talking but refuse to understand.  Such, the language of the horrific tornadoes that struck Oklahoma this week.  The walking wounded of that disaster, like the survivors of all disasters ask, "Why me?".  This totally blind, 100% disabled service connected veteran has asked that question a thousand times, as I have stumbled around in perpetual darkness: "Why me?"  I asked the same question when both of my parents were on their deathbed.  Both dying from the riggors of cancer.  They were two hard working, God fearing parents who had served God their entire lives.  Early in my life, as a farm boy, I asked why the night our barn burned.  I asked the same question as a father when my wife left with my child.  The loss of a child is great any time.  Perhaps not as great as in death, but I often wonder if bereft parents understand what they are doing in separating loved children from their parents; the psycholgical problems involved.  Divorce is often the excess baggage which the walking wounded children must carry around for the rest of their life.  Just think, 50% of all marriages end in divorce, resulting in the trauma of daycare for children.  Family animosity towards opposing parents; surely, if a couple loved one another enough to marry and have children, they could love the children enough not to become enemies.  Children who live with the DNA of ancestors of many generations.

There are so many walking wounded.  This world traveler talked with many survivors of wars.  Theirs is a story of loss; loss of loved homes and of prized possessions.  Many of the walking wounded of  political doctrines and spiritual intrigue.

            In other articles I have described in detail my three trips to communist China since it's re-opening. (Re-opened after the visit of President Nixon).  I was one of those on the first plane load of Americans there.  The Godless communist system; manufacturers of walking wounded. One of my guides told me about his sister, the communist one child policy.  His sister so wanted children, yet her husband would strangle any newborn female.  In every communist country; in every country ruled by religion (India, Iran, Iraq, Nepal, etc.) the walking wounded, whose very lives are controlled by the legalism-fanaticism of their religious belief system.

            You give your wounds to God.  Often, from ashes you start over.  The writer C. S. Lewis says "We never know what the devil has drudged up down the road for us."  We never know what we might forgive.  If God can forgive us after what we did to his Son, those wounded must be able to forgive...pain, poverty, political decadence, even the imprisonment of disease.  Christianity is not complicated, just tough.  Christ has given us liberty.

            It is so easy, in our wounds-disappoints-despair, to question or even blame God.  When you see the beautiful church house building, it's stained glass windows, which committed members saved and prayed to bill laying in ruins, you have reason to ask why.  Then think of the destroyed school house with loved children, and again you have reason to ask why.  The agnostics-unbelievers do not like "God talk" at a time of disaster or sorrow. We will never understand, on this side of eternity, why the wicked prosper or why the White House has become a party house for Barack and Michelle Obama. Why agencies which are tax supported are used to torture us (IRS, etc).  We rejoice in the knowledge that we trust God in bad times as well as good times.