I've been home for the holiday with my family and friends and, oh, what a wonderful time it has been. We have celebrated our blessings, shared our love and embraced the bonds that connect us generation to generation. We've laughed, and we've shed a few silent tears for those we miss, whose smiles we still see and whose laughter we still hear. Together we have recognized anew how our relationships have been strengthened and have deepened through the years.
My mind this Thanksgiving has also turned to those who were not together with their families, those men and women who serve our country at home and abroad, far too many in fields of danger and torment. In this troubled world, they face the unknown each and every day, unknowns that will quite possibly be littered with death and destruction. Yet they persevere and continue to sacrifice to a cause greater than self.
We who remain safe because of their due diligence owe them much more than gratitude. We owe them our prayers.
The Rev. Rick Phillips, pastor of Second Presbyterian Church in Greenville, provides some suggestions to guide us as we ask God to guide them in their daily duties and struggles.
Pray for their safety. They daily live in danger, especially those in the midst of combat. Those who remain behind may soon face those same circumstances. Pray for minimal casualties and for the blessings of immediate medical care. Pray for those medical personnel who tend to their wounds.
Pray for their suffering and misery. Sleep deprivation, hunger, loneliness, anxiety can be constant companions for our soldiers. Though they serve with honor, they often live in less than honorable conditions. Certainly the comforts of home are often distant memories as they awaken each day to horizons of dust and destruction. The courage to go one more day, despite all the distresses they face, can be strengthened by our prayers.
Pray for their strength of heart. Our soldiers often witness what we cannot imagine, even as wartime images pulsate across our television and computer screens. Inconceivable violence and death, the loss of comrades and leaders, the uncertainty of life, the reality of impending death ... certainly all of these and more pound away at the stamina and courage they need to carry out their orders. How desperate they must sometimes feel, how isolated and how tempted to give in or to give up.
Pray for those who carry great responsibility. Every soldier carries great responsibility, but leaders carry the lives of their units in their hearts, in their hands and in their decisions. Pray for their ability to lead well, to make reasoned and disciplined decisions, to face unexpected circumstances with presence of mind, to draw upon their knowledge and training and to provide strength, encouragement and comfort to those who are in their charge.
Pray that their sacrifices will make a difference for peace. Not just the absence of war, but a peace that promotes the rights of all humans to live in a world of possibilities, a world free of threat and danger, a world full of promise and hope.
Pray for their families who remain behind. Pray for their parents. For their spouses. For their children. Their brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles. Pray for interminable patience as those families endure the long and uncertain absences of their loved ones and for the strength to remain loyal and steadfast. Pray that they not lose heart.
I've been home for the holidays. But too many men and women I do not know are a long way from home. May God bless them and keep them and give them peace. May they know that the prayers of a grateful nation are always with them.
Harris Murray is director of library services at Orangeburg-Calhoun Technical College. She can be reached by e-mail at writeharris55@yahoo.com.