Maybe, Maybe Not

I had the privilege of serving my country during Operation Desert Storm with the 82ND Airborne. This past week or so I had been feeling a bit nostalgic as our 16 year anniversary rolled around of our return home. One of my best friends and I from my former unit began to talk about a 20 year reunion so I decided to see if I could find guys through the Internet with virtual ease. It worked much better than I ever anticipated. One number did cost me $7.99, but it was well worth it. Getting in contact with my former friends from the old unit brought back a lot of forgotten memories. Some things that I let go of since becoming a Christian were pointed out to me with laughter from some of the guys. One was shocked that I was in full time ministry.

Since becoming a Christian there has always been something that had troubled me about my time in Desert Storm. As we were leaving the country a group of us who were extremely close did something that made our commanding officer look bad. I never gave it a second thought until I came to know Jesus. Since that time the thought of our war time mishap would rear its ugly head in my mind. I had even had several dreams about it. I kept telling myself that if I could ever find my former commander that I would approach him and ask for forgiveness since I was under his command and it reflected greatly upon his leadership. During my Internet nostalgic frenzy I decided that I would try to locate my former commander and through 3 days of clicking and cross checking I located him. It took another day or so to get the nerve to call his house.

Today I left a message for him and within 10 minutes he returned my call. We talked for a while and then I reminded him of the famous "incident" but prefaced it with "I am now in full time ministry" with the hope for a little compassion and leverage. He remembered it once I mentioned it and let me get years of regret off of my chest. He granted me grace and reminded me that during that time I was just a kid even though they trained me how to kill effectively. After being gracious to me we began to talk about our lives and shared a few stories. We finished the conversation with him giving me his cell phone number and promising to talk more with one another. For years I had presumed that he would not be as gracious as he was when and if I had the chance to seek forgiveness, but that was proved wrong this morning. Had I not called and tried I would never have known.

Receiving forgiveness is not always so simple. I wrote an article on this blog once titled HEALED in reference to my former ministry. One of the guys from the Church became outraged by it and even though he commented anonymously I knew who it was. I sent him an email to try to work through the problem, but never heard back from him. I freely admitted where I as wrong and talked about my frustrations in that ministry. Some of what when on he probably did not know about. As Christians we will not always have those we seek forgiveness from ready to be as gracious to us as my former commander. We must seek the forgiveness where we have wronged others and trust that no matter what the outcome is we have done what is expected of us by God. How will you know unless you make an attempt? One thing is for certain you will have greater peace with God for trying!