Men in Uniform

My friends and I always joke about how good guys look in uniform. We admire (to be stated lightly) the uniformed men that walk in the school to pick up their kids from school. We see them everywhere. The store, the metro, Baskin Robbins-it goes with where we live. It's one of the "curses" of living 20 mins from the nation's capital and the bases for every military branch. We talk about wanting to date/marry a man in uniform.


(This picture is of a man who, as soon as he got on the Metro, pulled out his Bible, notebook and highlighter and dug into God's Word. I just had to get a picture. This totally rocked my world.)

I've changed my mind. Oh, they still look AMAZING in their uniforms. But I don't want to marry one.

Over the last month, I've sat at my computer and cried for friends who have lost their loves. Their "men in uniform". It just makes my heart ACHE to read about a girl, Ashley Tack,  losing her fiancée to a STUPID suicide bomber who was dressed up like a woman walking around the marketplace. And Jake Leicht, a kid I did summer camp and missions trips with, who never had his soap, towels or ANYTHING that one would need for camp, died after they drove over a bomb in the road. Previously he had gone through 2 years of physical therapy and begged to be allowed to go back and serve his country. And he's gone. 

I just ache for their families. For their loves. For all they have had to go through, wondering if they are still alive, wondering when they aren't going to be anymore. Hearing the news that they aren't. Getting that knock on the door. It didn't really affect or bother me before. I was in western PA and had nothing connecting me to the war. And now, living in NOVA, having so many students with parents in uniform, losing friends because of being transferred to another base, having friends suffer because their friends are being sent to other locations, I'm connected now. This war is affecting me.

Lord,  I want to thank You for the strength you are giving these families. Please hold Ashley close to You. Help her know that You will never let go. Please hold and protect and comfort all the families that have lost and will lose, every day, one of their loves.

One of the men in uniform.