One Soldier’s Road to God

"I sought the LORD, and he heard me, and delivered me from all my fears.”

If you think that an average person cannot be just as important in sharing faith with others, you haven't read the Bible lately.

The truth is, few in the Bible had a formal education, most were common, only a few knew how to write but what they all had in common was a connection to God. Perfect faith? Hardly. Read the struggles they all went through and how they questioned their own faith. Read how they made mistake after mistake and were forgiven over and over again. Read how they started out with no faith at all but had a hunger to make it grow than an even stronger hunger to share what they had gained.

Christ took common fishermen and turned them into being leaders. A need to know she was not alone, Spc. Kelly Lee prayed out of desperation for a sign that she should not take her own life and it came with Psalm 34.

Photo by Sgt. David Bryant
The chaplain's assistant for the 36th Infantry deputy division chaplain, Spc. Kelly L. Lee, grew up in a household of drugs, alcoholism and crime. She was on the brink of suicide when an answered prayer turned her life around. Always an individual, Lee tells teh story of her life before and after being saved through body arwork, with a full "sleeve" on her left arm and plans to complete another "sleeve" on her right. The tattoos on her lower arm were completed by Clint Cummings of Sparrows Tattoo, Mansfield, Texas, and those on her upper arm by John Chancy of Fineline Tattoo in Mesquite, Texas.

A Life Worth Saving: One Soldier’s Road to God
36th Infantry Division Public Affairs Office
Story by Sgt. David Bryant

BASRAH, Iraq – It was a clear, sunny February day. A breeze was blowing through the open window of her apartment; the closet had finally been cleaned earlier in the week and the small study Bible her best friend had given her when she was 12 was laying on the nightstand.

That was when Spc. Kelly L. Lee sat down on the floor next to her bed, placed the razor against her wrist and said, “God, if you’re there, you better let me know because I’m going to come meet you.”

“I was at such a point of self-loathing; that’s why I got out the razor blade,” the 27-year-old Dallas native said. “I had my own place, a good job and a wonderful fiancé at the time. All the pieces of the puzzle were there, but something was missing. That missing piece was the life I didn’t have.”

And life had not always been great for Lee, she said. A self-proclaimed Army brat, the fiery redhead grew up in an unstable home filled with drug and alcohol abuse. Her parents were divorced by the time she was 12 and her mother had been in and out of jail since Lee was 9 years old.

As she sat with the blade against her wrist, a breeze blew the small Bible onto the floor and opened to Psalm 34. As she began to read, a verse leapt out at her: “I sought the LORD, and he heard me, and delivered me from all my fears.”

“I didn’t get saved the ‘traditional’ way by being preached to or talking to a minister or anything like that,” Lee said. “You can’t deny a face-to-face meeting with God like that, though. I cried out and he heard me.”

Like most youth, Lee had been searching for an “identity” before she was saved. It was during her search that she first began to express herself through body art by getting her astrological sign, Leo, tattooed on each of her hands.

“I loved being able to express who I am through body artwork,” she said. “When I came to know Christ and his love for me, that translated into the tattoos I have now.”

The artwork now covers her entire left arm in what is known as a “sleeve,” and Lee uses them as part of her “personal ministry.”

“When people ask what they mean, it gives me a chance to express myself and tell my story,” she said.

From the depths of despair, she looked to a razor blade for salvation and instead found a calling, Lee added. “It was all he said; to be prepared. About a year and a half later, he laid on my heart: ‘Army.’ I prayed about it for about eight months, asking, ‘Is this really what you want me to do?’”
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One Soldier’s Road to God

Psalm 34

Of David. When he pretended to be insane before Abimelek, who drove him away, and he left.

1 I will extol the LORD at all times;

his praise will always be on my lips.

2 I will glory in the LORD;

let the afflicted hear and rejoice.

3 Glorify the LORD with me;

let us exalt his name together.

4 I sought the LORD, and he answered me;

he delivered me from all my fears.

5 Those who look to him are radiant;

their faces are never covered with shame.

6 This poor man called, and the LORD heard him;

he saved him out of all his troubles.

7 The angel of the LORD encamps around those who fear him,

and he delivers them.

8 Taste and see that the LORD is good;

blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.

9 Fear the LORD, you his holy people,

for those who fear him lack nothing.

10 The lions may grow weak and hungry,

but those who seek the LORD lack no good thing.

11 Come, my children, listen to me;

I will teach you the fear of the LORD.

12 Whoever of you loves life

and desires to see many good days,

13 keep your tongue from evil

and your lips from telling lies.

14 Turn from evil and do good;

seek peace and pursue it.

15 The eyes of the LORD are on the righteous,

and his ears are attentive to their cry;

16 but the face of the LORD is against those who do evil,

to blot out their name from the earth.

17 The righteous cry out, and the LORD hears them;

he delivers them from all their troubles.

18 The LORD is close to the brokenhearted

and saves those who are crushed in spirit.

19 The righteous person may have many troubles,

but the LORD delivers him from them all;

20 he protects all his bones,

not one of them will be broken.

21 Evil will slay the wicked;

the foes of the righteous will be condemned.

22 The LORD will rescue his servants;

no one who takes refuge in him will be condemned.

PTSD Not God's Judgment

Posted to Great Americans by NamGuardianAngel on September 10, 2009

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