Trenches

Serving as a long-term care chaplain in a veterans facility, the thing I came to appreciate the most was sharing every day with the residents with whom I ministered. I had the privilege of being able to see them literally every day, through good days and bad, through good news and bad, through family adventures and personal remembrances. I was right there with them. The “elders” as we called them, often liken it to the chaplains who served in the field during the war years. These ambassadors of God served literally in the trenches, side-by-side with those who fought and died for our freedom. Side-by-side is the only way to truly know someone, to truly be able to support them and to be supported through the important things in life. When things were the most intense, God was in the trenches with those chaplains, side-by-side with the soldiers sent by countries to war.

Today, as in war years, we remember God is in the trenches as God has always been.

Thank you, God, for being side-by-side with those who gave themselves for the wars of this world. You are God, who never leaves us, in life or in death. Amen. — KNM