Life Can Be A Battlefield

It’s a good thing I don’t write for a living as we would be eating a lot of Raman Noodles. I am one of those people who has to be inspired and sometimes that inspiration comes sooner and sometimes later to share my heart.

Just this week, we gave a presentation to social workers at Truman Medical. I came upon a piece of writing by Dr. Norman Vincent Peale who quoted a pastor by the name of Rev. Weston Stevens. This message was delivered at a service for a congregant who took his life. I began thinking about the battles our son and many others faced every day of his/her life. This piece of writing gave some peace to me even ten years later when I begin to question did we really do all we could?

Since I believe few things are coincidental, I was driven to share this.
Please pass on if you feel the message is important.

” Our friend died on his own battlefield. He was killed in action fighting a civil war. He fought against adversaries that were as real to him as his casket is to us. They were powerful adversaries. They took toll of his energies and endurance. They exhausted the last vestiges of his courage and strength. At last these adversaries overwhelmed him. And it appeared that he lost the war. But did he? I see a host of victories that he has won!”

For one thing, he has won our admiration, because even if he lost the war, we give credit for his bravery on the battlefield. And we give him credit for the courage and pride and hope that he used as his weapons as long as he could. We shall remember not his death, but his daily victories gained through his kindness, thoughtfulness, and through his love for family and friends, for animals, and books and music, for all things beautiful, lovely, and honorable. We shall not remember not his last day of defeat, but we shall remember the many days that he was victorious over overwhelming odds. We shall remember not the years we thought he had left, but the intensity with which he lived the years he had. Only God knows what this child suffered in the silent skirmishes that took place in his soul. But our consolation is that God does know, and he understands.”

Peace to those who died in battle;
Peace to those who are left;
May we try to understand those battles;
And may we not harbor anger but understanding and love.