“Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don’t give up.”

—Anne Lamott (b. 1954), author, political activist

Tonight I found the blog of the brother of my friend, Amaryllis… He has been recently called back to Active Duty with the military… He’s Navy, but they’re loaning him to the Army… He’s in Fort Dix, NJ right now doing combat training and preparing to make the trek over the big pond and another giant land mass or two to the Middle East to try to help with the mess going on over there. If you’d like to send some Care Mail… visit his blog where he has posted his mailing address (good through June 12, 2008).

It must be a very scary thing… going to a war zone. When I lived in Berlin, Germany during the Gulf War, we had a tank and armed soldiers around our high school for a time. I also had to show my ID to an armed soldier in order to get on my bus to go to and from high school. It was the closest to war zone that I had come, but close enough for me.

I can’t imagine what he’s feeling right now. I pray for his safety and comfort for his family while he is gone. I hope that he will feel God’s protective arms around him….. and I hope he doesn’t give up hope.