One hand in time of need works for AA, why not the DOD and the VA?

One hand in time of need works for AA, why not the DOD and the VA?

by
Chaplain Kathie

Being a Chaplain, especially an online Chaplain, can be very lonely as well as draining. I've cut back on the hours I do online from 16 back down to about 10. I couldn't keep up with the grueling pace anymore. As it is, I am a Chaplain 24/7. I never know where I'll be lead or who I will come into contact with that needs so spiritual help. It happens at the VA Clinic in Orlando. It happens in grocery stores, amusement parks and on the street when there is a car accident. It also happens in restaurants.

The other day, we took a tour of the Kennedy Space Center. (I posted about this with pictures) and we stopped for lunch at a sports bar on Merritt Island. They had just reopened that morning and they were having a rough time getting things to work right. The manager was making rounds going from table to table checking to make sure we were all happy. I could see he wasn't. I offered to say a prayer for him, the staff and the restaurant as well as the customers. He called over a few waitresses and the waitress we had for our table thought she had done something wrong because I had taken off my sweat shirt revealing my black Chaplain shirt with the official logo that looks like a sheriff's badge. I assured her that I was a Chaplain and not an officer. Most people spot the badge and not the word Chaplain right underneath. We joined hands as I prayed and a look of relief immediately came to the managers face.

The group of Chaplains I'm with in Brevard County call it the ministry of presence. Somehow just showing up in the middle of turmoil offers calmness. Often we don't have to say much of anything. Just being there to listen helps tremendously. This happens when I'm online and get emails from people that need to just be listened to.

It gets very hard when your life is falling apart. You wonder if anyone can hear you. If they cannot hear you, they cannot help you and hope fades, faith is tested to the breaking point and doubt takes over. We could be balling our eyes out in the middle of a crowded room, but if no one approaches us, we feel as if we are invisible to everyone as well as God. When things seem to be getting worse, no matter how hard or how much we pray, we wonder if God can see us, hear us, or we have been forgotten by Him as well. My own faith is tested and tried on a daily basis with my own personal problems. Mostly they are financial ones. It gets extremely hard to do what I do without financial support. I end up asking God why it is that I'm expected to help others if no help comes for us. Days on end with no help at all are like torture. Then a day comes when someone offers to help and I'm stunned. I know that God does in fact hear my pleas for help.

Often in the dark days of waiting for help, one of the Chaplains in my group sends out one of his daily devotionals and it hits me hard. Papa Roy did it again today.

Good morning Friends,

You can be

You can be fruitless and dying, or you can be fruitful and powerful. A lot of doubt comes into play when we are not walking close to God, when we are playing around with sin. James tells us, James 1:6-8 ...Ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man expect that he will receive anything from the Lord, being a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways. If your life is fruitless, your prayers also are powerless. On the other side of that coin, if you are walking mightily and fruitfully with God, then your prayers will be in accordance with His will. You will find that as your prayers are directed towards His will, they will always be granted to you. (Ron Daniels)

Mark 11:23 For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says.

You may wonder why you should say what God says in the Bible about you. First, God is looking for faith, and second, it is the Word planted in your life that will make you free. Speaking God's Word is a way of planting it in you. Yes, it can take faith to say what the Bible says about you. Especially when you don't feel like it and the circumstances don't agree, either. But we have to choose: will we rely on our feelings, or God's Word? Do we trust the circumstances more than God's Word?

Pray for our nation

Loving Lord, You call us into families and You often use our families to accomplish Your will in our lives—to instruct and nurture children, to care for our elderly and to give us glorious glimpses of Your great love for us. We praise and bless You for this marvelous plan, and for the joy and pleasure our families give us.

In God we trust: O LORD, save us; O LORD, grant us success.

Papa Roy

We talk a lot about the fact so many of our troops and veterans are suffering with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, the wound of the warriors, because their need is so great. They are suffering from the same emotional turmoil we all do but their burden in added to by the simple fact they are serving others and suffering on top of it. If we, in our lives suffer while thinking of ourselves, think of how much it hurts when they have set themselves aside for the sake of others and suffer for doing so. They suffer for forfeiting their own needs and wants because they know they are needed by others. They wonder where their help is, where their heroes are, as they see hope slip away wondering why no help comes for them.

As you read about the suffering they go thru, the numbers are stunning but they don't see the vast flood of wounded. They see only themselves suffering in tremendous pain wondering why no one can see them. It is not until they begin to talk to others going thru the same trials and turmoil they see they are not alone. But what about between now and then? Who is there for them? Who is fighting for them and taking their burden upon their own shoulders for their sake? Do they get a Papa Roy sending out daily reminders of God's love for them when they need it the most? Do they get a phone call from someone in the DOD or the VA wanting to find out how they are, if they are doing ok or if they need anything? Is that too much to ask?

When people join Alcoholics Anonymous, they are put into contact with someone they can call when they need to talk or need support as well as someone that will call them to check on them. The troops and the veterans are not provided with anyone. In a perfect world, they have friends to care and watch over them but too often these friends have no idea what to say or do finding it virtually impossible to know the depth of the pain their friend is in. It's not that they don't want to understand. It's a matter of if they have not been in their place, they simply cannot grasp the complexity of the wound. How can a PTSD veteran gain strength from a clueless, although well meaning friend? They can't. They need someone to understand them and know what that kind of pain actually feels like.

Support groups are wonderful but too often they will go but feel unable to connect to a bunch of strangers. It takes the comfort of a person for many instead of a group so they don't feel lost in a crowd of other people suffering especially when they have it within them in their core to help others. They are then left with wanting to know "who is helping me" because instead of receiving they are yet again the one giving. They end up wondering if anyone can see them, see their pain and focus on them for a change. If God loves them then why doesn't God send someone to help them? If the government respects and appreciates their service, then why do they suffer without help? How can they trust anyone when no one can hear them?

They are not just suffering with the weight of the world on their shoulders, they suffer with claims denied and financial burdens they can do nothing about but somehow find the strength to keep fighting to have their claim honored and their wounds taken care of. They see their family under the financial strain begin to doubt them as they themselves lose hope of better days and prayers answered. Help does not come and hope does not come soon enough for too many. They cannot hold themselves up any longer and they take their own life. Why? Why when so many others have been thru the valley of despair could have comforted them do they feel so totally alone?

I know a lot of support groups out there and they are doing wondrous things but they do not offer one on one help the way AA does. This is what I want to see. I want to see a Papa Roy for every wounded service man and woman needing it. Is that too much to ask for them? You'd think that if the Army can get in contact with every soldier they want to deploy, they could do the same with every soldier they want to help. If the National Guards can mobilize individuals in emergencies and for deployments, they can do the same to help mobilize one person for the sake of another when they have an emergency or need help in a crisis. Is that too much to ask? What would it take to do this? It would only take the time to do it and the desire to do it for their sake.

If I, having tremendous faith in God and His ability, find myself so invisible in the darkest days of need, how can anyone expect them to endure if their own faith is weak and no one comes to help them? Believe me I struggle to hang onto hope and a reason to do what I feel I've been called to do more often than the rain comes into Central Florida. I need to be reminded that God does in fact know I'm still here and trying my best to do what is expected of me. Think of how they feel when no one comes to help them. If we offer one hand in their time of need, we not only help them heal, we help them to find a reason to live and we help their family find hope once more. Just think of that. Saving a warrior's life and his family at the same time you do what God said to do in the Ten Commandments when He said to love they neighbor as thyself. Time to move some mountains!