The Hope and The Calling // December 17, 2006

Here's what happened. When I was coming home off deployment, I had that wonderful feeling that I had done well and all was right with the world. I was excited about "going active" and completing a full-time career in the U.S. Army Chaplain Corps. However, my family was not as confident that was the best thing. At that point, I had spent a collective month or so as a married man and was perhaps suffering from mild PTSD. (Most returning soldiers do)

So, I put away my notions of the professional soldier's life and set my sights on becoming a pastor.

Another blocked door. For all my résumé’s and phone calls, there was just empty space. I didn't understand. God had called me to ministry and there was simply nothing there for me! I turned back to the second love of my life - teaching.

Returning to Grace was an exercise in trusting God. I wondered if I could afford it, I hoped that I had not lost the "gift" of teaching, I wondered how my new, harder, less tactful way of dealing with life would even have a place in a high school setting. I was married now; I had gone to Iraq and come back feeling quite different about life. I can even say that my theology had changed a bit. What was important to me was profoundly changed. I confess to being quite nervous about facing a classroom full of young minds – what would I have to say to them?

Teaching came back like riding a bike though. I fell back into the routine with ease and coaching soccer became my new passion. I enrolled in the University of West Georgia and prepared to get another degree in School Counseling. Sara and I focused on each other. The school was so welcoming. Sara started there as well – we sent from not seeing each other at all to very rarely not seeing each other! It has been an amazing time of growing closer and stronger in our relationship.

God had different plans it would seem.

Uncle Sam came knocking again. I have been called up to support Operation Warrior Trainer. It’s a program where those who have just come back from a deployment train those who are about to go. It’s a Stateside deployment (for me down to Ft Stewart outside of Savannah, GA) for training. Its not without its own challenges. I will have to do a good bit of traveling to do Chaplain (UMT) training at various Camps and Forts throughout the Eastern United States. Its an exciting ministry! Not only will I be operating as a Teacher, Sara and I will have ample opportunity to reach out to deploying families as they face what is probably the hardest time of their lives.

We’ll miss the school. I know that I will miss my students profoundly. Sometimes, I wonder why it was that God brought us back here only to send us away, but I know that following Him is the only way to go. This journey seems to be leading us into a long career in the Army Chaplain Corps – however, if this experience teaches me anything, its that you never know what is coming next! Its what makes serving God so exciting!

Pray for us. We’ll be looking at some separation again. It’s the nature of the ministry God called us to. It won’t be on the same intensity as the last separation, but it will still be there nonetheless.

Pray for wisdom for me. This is a challenge that I believe God has prepared me for through years of teaching and yet, its quite different than anything I’ve done to date.

Pray for Sara, she will be finishing her degree in History. That’ll be a challenge in of itself.

So, keep in touch, looks like the site will get busy again!

Blessings on this Lord’s Day and Merry Christmas!