Who Were You Before You Found Yourself in This War?

“Who were you before you found yourself in this war”

~from an email to myself
4/6/2018, 1:29 AM

In one of my favorite scenes from Saving Private Ryan, the Captain Miller’s small band of men are at such internal odds with one another over various things, and, the mission itself, that they are on the brink of making a new war between themselves. It is then that the Captain (played by Tom Hanks) has the wits about him how to deflect this brewing situation. He’s been holding a card in his hand, as they say, by not answering the younger men’s repeated question to him, “What was it that you did before this War?”

In a heated moment, the Captain suddenly asks them, gaining their full attention and squelching the trajectory of that moment, “What’s the pool up to (on me) now?”.

He says, “I’m a school teacher. I teach English composition.”

He then goes on to say he’s from a little town called Addley, Pennsylvania, teaching at Thomas Alva Edison High School, which of course, is fictional. And then he goes on to tell them how he coached baseball in the springtime…and much more…

Life is hard. We all find ourselves in various battles–wars of sorts–that inevitably wound, mar, scar and change us. Surviving battles can strengthen us, yet the many costs of such victories are high. We may wonder why we ended up in such difficulties, and some battles seem endless with no real way forward. Perhaps it is good for anyone reading this to also think of their own battles and ask themselves the same question as I asked myself in an email to myself on 4/6/18,
“Who were you before you found yourself in this war?”

Getting back to the question I posed to myself that day in 2018, “Who was I before I found myself in this war?”

Well, which war?

• The war that was my childhood?
• The war that was my teenage years?
• The war that was my college years?
• The war that was my first marriage?
• The war that was being a single mother with two boys?
• The war that was a confusing courtship?
• The war that was my second marriage?
• The war that was my second divorce?
• Or the war that I now find myself in?

I’m one to save little this-and-thats which mean something to me. Among the various things I have tucked away in drawers, or in this case, in a little jewelry box that also contains a pair of my father’s glasses (minus the lenses) and some trinkets from childhood…a couple tiny barrettes, for example, I have tucked these little round labels with writing on them.

I think it was my very first Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship retreat, probably my spring semester of freshmen year (or fall of sophomore year…) that these were taped on to me while we sat around a campfire. I was hungry for connection, hungry for spiritual growth and for God; I was hungry for many things. And going on a religious retreat like that was a totally foreign experience. I remember having so much fun and feeling like I was on a mountaintop of connection with God, and the others present.

I remember we were in a circle around a campfire–not sure if we broke into smaller groups for the activity (were we to put one label on each of five in the group? or, were we to use as many labels as we wanted and select who to put them on in a much larger group?) or if there were several dozen people. I do remember being given little labels and pens, and we were to write one-word affirmations/descriptors of others in the group.

At any rate, these were the labels that others came and stuck on my sweatshirt that night. I remember in particular the woman who wrote the item in red, of me. And the second one was written by a male student, though I don’t recall whom. I had wondered what was meant by that, and I believe he said, “someone who ignites or get things going.”

In case it is unclear in the image, the five labels that represent just a bit of who I was before my next wars (and who I still am!) read as follows:

• quiet and gentle spirit (great worth in God’s eyes)
• a kicker
• pure
• friendly
• helpful

As I reference the word hunger, above, I think of a poem I wrote a few weeks ago.

Decades of a Hungry Heart

When I was ten,
my father scramble-fried venison for me which I heavily salted
since I was prone to gag on meat (or that kind of meat) and thought it bland
and he told me how to carefully chew it to avoid any buckshot.
In between the arguments and the chaos
some Unknown Hand was taking charge of those that guided me through
the dim darkness of those days and
feeding me because
everybody’s got a hungry heart.

When I was twenty,
I was eating alone in campus dining halls
or meeting up with Bible study groups
and discussing the costs of next semester tuition among us.
We would leave together and out-of-state friends and I
would be sure to grab an ice cream pop, too, and as we
strolled out of the North Campus Faux-Rodney-Restaurant
I felt pangs of guilt knowing that various government aid fed me but not them
since my father’s death and mother’s widowhood was a mere five years in the rear-view-mirror and because
everybody’s got a hungry heart.

When I was thirty,
I was making peanut-butter-and-jellies for my first-born
while myself eating for two.
Stretching every dime and by then writing some
rough draft about walking by faith
and not by sight.Days were filled with little thought to
anything but the immediate future and feeding others because
everybody’s got a hungry heart.

When I was forty,
I was getting scared as I was juggling and twisting and turning and
planning a surprise over-the-hill party
at some Mexican restaurant while…
while glancing all around me, in-and-out of me and round about me
while making meals and losing weight
because it was getting hard to concentrate or communicate
that I was revising all kinds of rough drafts in my mind
on flashing signs pointing upside-down telling me
walk this way, no walk that way…and I walked here and there but not away
by faith when I could not see because
everybody’s go a hungry heart.

When I was fifty,
I ate a cake baked by a woman in a group, in a group I found myself among
in some faraway place.
Oh and in my closet somewhere were photos from years ago of my sons yet not adhered
to the yearly birthday albums I had set out to create for each of them.
Oh those big parties I threw for them perhaps trying to make up for
not having my young birthdays celebrated, no one celebrated me so
I made sure to celebrate them.
At fifty I was a little-a-lot fatter and older though no where near
pregnant, walking in some dim scene by sight or faith I do not know.
We were all eating cake when I turned fifty because
everybody’s got a hungry heart.

When I am sixty,
I will be walked through decades of walking by faith
and not by sight I will revising rough drafts while sand runs through an hourglass
on some SAT exam I may well fail…
I will have been seeing where I’ve walked and
I had been said-ing I will not see which way forward
yet I am walking and why…
why and how long I walk…I walk…I walk…
I keep walking, finding strength to walk rather than eat because
everybody’s got a hungry heart.

~ written March 23, 2023

In War, one tactic is to cut off your enemy’s supply chain and otherwise strategize to deplete their resources (a war of attrition). In the American Civil War, there’s been a lot written about tactics on both sides and supply chain issues, with great significance to Sherman’s campaign, how it was carried out and its ultimate effects. In many ways, it might be likened to images of a devouring plague of locusts in the biblical sense. As Sherman said, “War is hell.”

Personally, I relate to the feeling of being in a War of Attrition. Everyday on every front I seem to be fighting to regain lost ground and move forward, and it honestly seems like I keep taking a variety of different hits that seem to have a remarkable amount of significant impact and depletion, with uncanny sense of timing and co-incidence.

People sometimes speak of Murphy’s Law or the, “I can’t win for losing” predicaments. As a Christian, I feel I am starting to discern a bit more into what the NT references as schemes of the devil and recognizing when I am under some sort of spiritual attack. I’ve not always paid as much attention to these somewhat speculative or subjective notions (in a specific way) but for whatever reason, it seems that in my current battles and situations, some things are more apparent to me.

I think there are a number of references throughout the Old and New Testament that God can use to give insights into our various battles and I especially love the resonating responses to various tribulations strewn throughout the Psalms. And I believe the New Testament gives us so much hidden manna to endure and persevere in various ways when we find ourselves the spiritual target of some demonically-driven war of attrition.

Ten or twenty years ago, when I was engulfed in other personal battles, I would not have viewed things in this way. There has just been too many convergences of things in the past five years for me to not now give consideration to this. A family member(s) has referred a number of times in the past to something they call “The Linger Luck.” I will be continuing to write about this from a spiritual vantage point; and I am grateful that God used a particular situation to open my eyes a bit more concerning the realm of what some Christians refer to as “generational curses.”

I tend to first look at most things from natural vantage points and explanations and certainly do not look for demons under every rock. But, again, this past year God has brought a variety of things to my attention in bold relief. And my evolving understanding of the need for God-directed breaking of unholy connections of many sorts–things that we must do in the natural realm in order to effect needed spiritual realm victories–seems to be marching from thing to thing these days.

I’ve had at least one friend overtly say, in reference to my many battlefronts, that they would have given up long ago. And I’ve sensed from others at times in various ways, that some might feel that my approach to various battles seems hard to comprehend. And that’s OK; our battle belong to God ultimately, and He equips us to fight our own particular demons, as the metaphor goes.

That said, it’s hard. All of it. And many times I seem to suddenly get knocked down on the mat so hard I’m thinking, “this may be the time I’m down for the count, so-to-speak.” Yet, God sustains and delivers me time and time again in ways that I cannot fully articulate. At least, not in this piece. It’s too much, and we can all feel like too much at times, but, for God, we and our battles are never too much.

“I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the LORD In the land of the living. Wait for the LORD; Be strong and let your heart take courage; Yes, wait for the LORD.”

Psalm 27:13-14 (NASB)

I once wrote a piece called The Land of the Living, and in recent months I think a lot about this phrase. How long, Oh God, will it be until I am truly in the land of the living again? I don’t know the answer to that (obviously). And a recent sermon I heard about Ezekiel’s dry bones led me to ask myself if my bones were all dead and dried up. And my thoughts are no, my bones actually have much life in them. But, it feels like the life they were formed for is now in abject ruins of sorts–the death and destruction that the past thirteen years has left in its wake seems almost insurmountable.

From the personal impact, to the impact on my sons, to the impact in my business, to the impact on my physical and emotional health–it feels overall like a huge war of attrition.

And yet, I fight. I don’t surrender, and I hold out hope against hope, that God will somehow reign victorious and redeem all these places of death and devastation. A few weeks back, a friend shared a quote she read somewhere along the lines of, “Your new life is going to cost you your old life.” It seemed to resonate with me at the point I’m now at in this difficult season. One cannot fast-track the cutting off of past things; the past must do its full work in us (and sometimes, that work gets re-visited yet again down the road…) to bring us to redemptive points.

For example, I was unable to destroy my hand-calligraphied wedding vows from 2012, from a framed, painting artwork, until the summer of 2021. I just could not. And then, there were some various things in recent months, God had readied me and brought to mind that these physical items needed to leave my possession. And these were nothing of any monetary value. They were items that had spiritual attachments that because of situations, needed to be gone. Not every item from “other lifetimes” needed to be destroyed. I still have my wedding albums from both marriages and would not anticipate destroying such things. But when God shows us an item that needs to go, then, we must trust and rejoice in the insight, knowing that in the spiritual realm, something is being broken that has become in some way, curse-bringing rather than life-giving.

Sometimes it is something as simple as a certain pair of shoes, or a blouse worn on some occasion.

~~~~~

Late this past Friday evening all through Saturday evening–in the reflective time that we experience as part of Holy Week, I sensed God put a specific task before me with sudden motivation to tackle. It has been a task I have avoided since my divorce was final in December 2019, and for good reason. During this commemorative time period when we think about Jesus being in the grave and the work that He accomplished on our behalf to deliver us from a number evils that threaten the well-being and healing of our souls, for some reason I decided it was time I go through the old email account that bears the name I took in my second marriage.

I have had an automatic forward on all messages that would go into that account since my divorce was finalized. Daily, I have been getting a mounting quantity of junk mail (on closer inspection initially sent to the old email), and fewer and fewer relevant messages. At some point, one must continue to cut their losses (if I totally delete it, anyone who might have had a business card with that email during my nearly 8 year marriage will no longer find me that way) and my intention was to delete the account prior to midnight Saturday, in a form of personal, spiritual, God-directed efforts to go deeper into the healing and new life God has for me (and for all of us), that we celebrate on Resurrection Sunday.

But, it isn’t like I can just “delete” the account. I estimate I spent about 16 hours sifting through old messages, deleting the irrelevant, saving any relevant emails as PDF’s, and even dealing with some old client messages and doing the work to add to my client contact list. The amount of disruption even to my regular business practices that took place during my divorce process and subsequently cannot be over-stated.

The process of getting that email account to the point of deletion (and yes, ultimate deletion of that account felt spiritually needful) took significant work (and there are still messages forwarded to my current email that need proper attention in archiving, etc. for various reasons). Included in these various emails were a few poems I had composed during 2018-2019 (I will sometimes dictate/type some type of poetical expression–usually deeply metaphoric but not rhyming–when I am responding to difficult emotions and may email it to myself), some messages with my sons, or emails to myself with thoughts about situations with them, or, involving the other difficulties that were unfolding.

Sometimes I tend to use my email almost like a diary or journal–it’s easy when I have a lot on my mind to “send myself” an email just to get it out. It goes to no one, and can relieve me to articulate. So, I had to sort through a number of these and keep anything I felt worth saving (I think we all can benefit from journaling of many sorts and keeping a trail of our joys and struggles) and deleting what was of no current or future value.

This was a lot of emotional and otherwise methodic work involving a lot of concentration and determination. My method for some things was to cut/paste the text into a tabled Word Document, and the date/subject line. Then delete the email. Kinda like putting the bits and pieces into my personal collection of saved thoughts. Not everyone will understand the value in this, but I’ve gleaned things this way during other war times of my life that I actually do return to and read from time to time–it is empowering, and also a way to self-care, even keeping the hard parts.

I found a few of the writings interesting not only because they still ring true in some parts concerning the seeming never-ending series of battles, but also seeing progress in various things. Sometimes, our personal growth/progress/forward movement seems imperceptible. Until, we look back a year, or two, or five…or twenty. I believe that God doesn’t fast-track many things. It takes slow, steady growth for Him to form us into an oak tree, or give us eagles’ wings, or form us like a potter forms a vessel, or forges iron, for His own purposes.

I really suppose I should answer the question posed by my title here,
“Who were you before you found yourself in this war”

Like in a physical War, war changes us. In war, our darker angels, as they say, can show their faces. I know there are things in me that arose out of deep anger and hurt, that I now must cast aside. I no longer need some of these anger-fueled expressiveness, or ways of thinking/shielding myself from further wounding; but in the midst of the battle, they seemed necessary. Or at least, revealed my weaknesses.

The soldier fortunate enough to return home from foreign lands and unspeakable things seen in battle, will never be the same. They carry with them battle scars, and they learn things they may struggle to unlearn once they return to ordinary life or…the land of the living.

The soldier also returns with amounts of wisdom and strength learned in hard-fought-for ways, perhaps. Courage, I suppose. Yet of course, there are the soldiers who return from battle so wounded they are beyond healing. I suppose I’m covering a variety of thought here, understanding that anyone who reads this will rightly think about their own life battles, and where they are at with things.

I think the better question I might ask myself five years after I sent that question to my own self by email is, “Who do I want to be when this war is over, and, will it ever end?”

This war I am in on every side may in fact, never end, in any significant way. Battles tend to transform and morph.

But the good news is, so do we.

A Poem Written January 22, 1985

Memories of all I’ve been
in all my yesterdays
Coupled with mixed hopes and uncertainty
of all I’ll be in all my tomorrows
Leave me in confusion
of all I am today.

Oh Lord, light my way.

Always going through changes
as some things die
and some things grow.
At times I wish I knew the future–
but if I could,
don’t think I’d want to know.

Oh Lord, the way please show.

Why now is there such a strange medley
of hope and fear?
Is it natural human response
or a message unclear?

Oh Lord, resolve all I hear.