“Go! Let it be done just as you believed it would.”

Faith of the Centurion
Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
October 6, 2015

Yesterday I asked for prayers when I posted What Does A Chaplain Do When Soul Is Crushed because I just didn't know what to do anymore. After 33 years I was ready to quit. There just didn't seem to be anymore reasons to even try to do this work especially when everything I knew was being drowned out by all the groups popping up all over the country. I just got to a point where I gave everything I had left to give and there just wasn't anything left to keep this emotional weight off my soul.

Too many gone and counting far too many years witnessing it feeling helpless to get anyone to hear me anymore.

Well, I asked for prayers from readers as well as members of Point Man International Ministry leaders. Every Monday night we have a conference call and it replenishes us but with getting up at 4:30, I had to stop participating in that call. I asked Dana for prayers from the group. I asked for prayers from friends that if God wanted me to give up, I just needed to know for sure or if He wanted me to keep fighting, I needed the strength to do it. I got the usual speech from my buddy Gunny about not giving up on veterans because they were not giving up on me and bless him for all the support he has given more more times than the can even remember.

If anyone tells you that prayers are no longer answered, share this with them.

I was getting ready to go home from work, waiting until a few minutes before the end of my day, to talk to a coworker. I was sure I'd cry. She is a Christian and I thought she belonged to a prayer group, so asked her if they would pray for me to find out what I am supposed to do.

Sure enough, she listened to what I needed instead of offering a blanket prayer, good prayers are always as specific as they can be. She said she understood and gave me words of encouragement so that if the answer came back to stop, I would find peace knowing that all these years helped a lot of people and I should find comfort in that.

Then she told me about a friend of hers in the military. He used to attend church with her but has become an atheist. I was explaining how something like that can happen when the tears dried up. I told her that they see so much horror and evil that they miss what is miraculous at the same moment. That they grieve so much because the strength of their soul, preparing them to be able to put their lives on the line, knowing they could die for someone else, opens them up to the pain they carry. That grieving is coming from a place of love, not evil. That compassion lives no matter what they face. That the man/woman standing by their side is willing to die for them. That they are there to save and should the enemy drop their weapons, they would simply take them in and not obliterate them where they stand. That PTSD comes into that place where all that is good lives and tries to infect it.

I told my friend that Point Man has Combat Veteran Bibles I could send him and then reminded her about the Roman Centurion telling her that it is a good reminder of what can happen when someone believes just enough to ask.

Matthew 8:5-13 New International Version (NIV)

The Faith of the Centurion

5 When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, asking for help. 6 “Lord,” he said, “my servant lies at home paralyzed, suffering terribly.”

7 Jesus said to him, “Shall I come and heal him?”

8 The centurion replied, “Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. 9 For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”

10 When Jesus heard this, he was amazed and said to those following him, “Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith. 11 I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. 12 But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

13 Then Jesus said to the centurion, “Go! Let it be done just as you believed it would.” And his servant was healed at that moment.

It was while I talking about the Centurion that the weight crushing my soul left and I knew I had my answer. I am not supposed to give up. When I was talking about my own suffering, focusing on what I was lacking, it hurt, yet when I was talking about the members of the military and our veterans, it didn't hurt anymore.

What they need is already in them. There is no magic to what I do and it isn't financially expensive as much as it is emotionally but the rewards far outweigh the tiny price I pay. I actually smiled when I told my friend what those I help want to do as soon as they start to heal. They want to help other veterans. That's how amazing all of them are and that, that you cannot put a price on. It is all proof of God's Love and the Compassion Christ came to teach all of us.

If veterans are to heal, the spirit has to be at the center of any endeavor and it shouldn't matter if they go to church or not. That is not my job. My job is to help them and their families heal the same way mine did.

I know what trauma does as much as I know what it can do to a person from a lifetime of facing it just as a civilian. I also know what God can do to heal us and bring us peace to live as a survivor. Everything I needed to heal was already inside of me, just as it is within them. They just need help finding it and seeing it differently.

So I'll keep fighting the good fight and doing my best everyday as I search for another way to do it so that I won't let my voice be drowned out by the chattering instant experts unable to explain anything about "raising awareness" when they are not even aware of what the facts are.

Simply put, if their goal is to educate veterans about the problem, as most appear to be doing, they forget the veterans already know why they are suffering. What they don't know is how to heal. 

Frankly, no one should be making any money off telling them they are in pain. If they are trying to educate the public, again, enough money has already been spent to make matters worse for all of them, so that is a useless effort.

I was feeling like the Centurion, unworthy to ask for help but clinging onto just enough hope to ask and my prayers were answered. Yours can be answered too! Just have enough hope and courage to ask.