The last month or so was a little rough. Ryan was sick and ended up in the hospital for a couple of days. And, maybe hardest of all, God was too quiet for me. Actually, it may be more that life has been too loud or that my hearing isn’t so great when I’m sleep deprived.
During this “quiet” time, out of sheer panic at the thought of going somewhere bitter again, I started to focus on the times that He has spoken. The time that God spoke the loudest to me was during our first year of marriage. Wes was in the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division and I had become fairly accustomed to his being called out in the middle of the night for training exercises. But this time was very different. They had been held on post for a couple of days and we were hearing rumors that our men were headed to Panama to fight the Panamanian Defense Force (PDF).
We were finally called to a meeting on post at one of the movie theatres. The theatre was packed with military wives looking to the officers, standing across the front, for answers. They told us that our husbands were on planes headed to Panama. They had jumped, or would be jumping within minutes, into Fort Cimmerón. The last thing I remember hearing, before the ringing in my ears and numbness completely blocked everything out, was that Fort Cimmerón was expected to be heavily armed and that we would definitely sustain heavy casualties.
Soldiers were standing at the end of each aisle with a rosters showing exactly who was on those planes. They told us that we could check with one of those soldiers to see if our husbands were listed. As we stood in line, it was eerily quiet. We stood there listening to a pattern of “Name? Yes, ma’am, your husband is one of the planes.” Then the quiet sobs as she walked past those of us still waiting in line. “Name? Yes, ma’am, your husband is on one of the planes.”
All I remember was the sick feeling I had when I heard that Wes was on the list. I drove back to our empty apartment and called my little praying grandmother; she prayed – I listened. After she prayed, I numbly drove back to work where I could be with other military wives and found them watching the news. We watched in disbelief as the reporter told us that our men had found Ft Cimmerón completely empty. It sounded so much like one of the Biblical stories where God confused the enemy and sent them fleeing. My husband later told me that the PDF ran off, leaving hot coffee and automatic weapons in the windows.
As if that weren’t amazing enough, when Wes was jumping in he had drifted away from the others and landed in the jungle. He broke tree branches on the way down and rolled down a large hill landing just a few yards from a trailer. When the porch light came on, he thought he was in serious trouble; but, even though he was alone, still connected to his parachute, and partially in the water God brought him out safely.
So, during this “quiet” week, I keep trying to remind myself that if God can confuse an entire military unit, I’m sure He can handle all that we are, or will ever, face.
