Finding Hope Beyond The FrontSample

Fear

Christie, Reservist wife

I was overjoyed to hear that yet another day had passed and my husband, Robert, was still doing well in Iraq. In recent days, rocket blasts and machine gun bursts could be heard in the background on the phone, and there were stories from other wives of soldiers deployed with my husband telling me of close calls and nearby bombings. 

I needed our daily phone calls to squelch the worries that crept in.

As our conversation continued, however, my husband paused and said, “We’re going out on patrol tonight. I’ve been asked to go out as a medic with one of the teams here on post. 

My face instantly toughened and my heart sank. I managed to croak out that I wanted him to call me when his mission was over and the conversation ended quickly with the usual repeated, “I love you.”

Throughout the next day, my mind wandered back to my husband. I imagined him dressed in full military “battle rattle” with his weapon and bulky medic’s bag riding close beside him. My thoughts quickly became tragic. What would I do if he was wounded? Or killed?

I felt myself suffocating, my mind nearly paralyzed from these fearful thoughts of “what if...?”

I finally sat down, prayed, and opened my Bible. I read: “And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” The writer is telling us, God’s people, that when we seek to know God by communicating with him, He shows us what true peace is.

The word of God also promises that even when destruction surrounds us and anxiety is great within us that we can take joy in the consolation that comes from Him. God was gently teaching me that there was no need to speculate on what could or could not happen. I could not allow my mind to dwell on the things that are not of God.

In that quietness with the Lord, my mind and my heart became still and the fears and anxieties that had laid siege to my mind were banished. 

At 4AM, the promised “end of mission” call came, as I knew it would. And throughout the remainder of my husband’s long, 15-month deployment, there were more opportunities to rejoice in God’s Word, ending the desire to speculate on things that may be in order to focus on the things that are: the peace of God, the comfort of God, the strength of God, the grace of God, and the love of God.

PRAYER: Father, help me to know that any time I am afraid, You are always near to comfort and calm my anxiousness. The Scriptures tell me that You are my shield.

PASSAGES FOR STUDY: Psalm 91; James 1; Matthew 6