Thursday, September 29, 2005

Here we go again

I am a happy blogger. When days go by with no news, it is not good news. I am having to force myself to post now. I tell myself it's important to be consistent, and to be real. But most likely, I just need to express my mixed up jumble of emotions. For someone who is rabidly anti-Iraq war, I find myself endorsing and even encouraging my 21 year old son to enlist in the military, as I did his older brother two years ago. My oldest son chose another path as it looked likely he would make it into the Coast Guard. It was his decision, and he seems to be happy with it. However, my other son is truly floundering in adult life. To say he needs the discipline and structure and commitment of a tour of duty is a gross understatement. I don't think the why of his predicament is pertinent, and I couldn't tell you why anyway, not in any definitive way, even if my life depended on it. It just is. He needs it. He needs maturity. He needs to go a direction, any direction, and he needs to be forced to stick with it. All the while I gather information, remove obstacles, plan and enable to this end, I think those horrible "what if" thoughts, and anguish engulfs me. The well-meaning rationalizations of my friends and family that few enlistees actually go to war, that even fewer still are casualties of war, that it will make a man out of him...none of these will comfort me in the event of tragedy. My only comfort is in the Lord. My trust is in God, and that what will be will be. I am not pushing him, the decision is his, but he is at such a crisis point that there are very few other options. And so I have asked God to help him make the decision and to take care of him. It may be my prayer for a long time.

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