Independence Day

I've read several blogs by pure happenstance this week (Thank you Lord) and it seems a good day to start my own. I suspect the content as it goes will reveal why...I have no real goal in mind. I was told this week by a psychiatrist in Washington DC (who treated one of my patients while he was at Walter Reed) that he had exhausted his expertise with this soldier and sent him to our trauma program "because you're the experts". What a humbling thing to hear someone else say. Someone to whom I would defer at any turn at all. I took that statement and my conception of the case to the psychiatrist in charge of this soldier now and found we were in agreement about a change in treatment plan and was humbled once again. Most days I go about my business doing what I do and saying what I say and the outcome is usually satisfactory. Only rarely do I stop and fully realize how what I do touches the lives of others This week I was profoundly taken aback and became once again profoundly grateful that God is in charge of it all, and my gratitide to Him translates in to healing love for others.

I celebrate this Independence Day in honor of Philip, a soldier who has touched my life in a very special way. He gained his independence from the US Army just 7 days ago and is beginning that process of resetting his life with his family and beginning a future that is framed with the trauma of war. Our OIF-OEF Vets have a very special kind of trauma and are making heroic attempts to hold it together in the face of trauma injuries that would send me to my room, lights off and curtains drawn, for the rest of my life. I've considered myself fairly well educated and awake to the ways of the world until I became acquainted with Philip and other soldiers who came to our program to lay down their memories and rid themselves of the self loathing, hatred, and anxiety they carry. You have no idea. I still have no idea. Every week something new and ever more cunningly evil is reported by a soldier who just wants to stop dreaming about it or have it stop playing itself out over and over on the sidewalk in front of him as he walks to his barracks at the end of his day.

To Philip, our other soldiers and the people who love them I dedicate this day. It is my prayer that God blesses Philip. I started to say "and his buddies" but all of his Army buddies save one were killed in a cloud of dust in Afghanistan in 2006. I pray for God's blessings on the Afghani man who pushed the detonator as well, because God would have him if he will come. Satan's stirring the war pot is putting together people who were never intended to meet in circumstances they cannot control let alone survive and it is not that Afghani man who is our enemy, it is Evil who is our enemy.

So on July 4th we're called to thank God for the independence of our nation which was won by men who were openly fully dependent on God. It is my prayer this 4th of July that revival of dependence on God once again will bring our young men home from those places so the killing of body, mind, and spirit can stop. Finally. Amen