Hello Again . . . finally

I am sure some of you have been wondering whether or not I would ever return to this blog. There were times when I wondered myself. A series of discouraging episodes with the internet kind of sucked the life out of me for a while - but I have been on Environmental Morale Leave and am mostly better now.

My intent will be to renew the postings here at least every other week for the remainder of the deployment - but I guess we will see how it goes. I have intended lots of things over the years.



We left August in pretty good spirits, I think - all things considered. While a couple of other Battalions in our Brigade took some pretty hard hits, and not a few casualties - we were very glad to have a few injuries but no lost soldiers during the violent days surrounding the Afghan elections. Not to say that our Denali paratroopers were removed from the fight - in many places they were right in the thick. Sometimes there is just no accounting (on this end of eternity, I suppose) for the way a battle turns. We have been very sorry though, to hear of the loss of several of our Brigade brothers during that same period.



I took leave at the end of September, as I have indicated. It was super to be with Jamie and the kids for a few days - really nice. Went fishing with a dear friend who is also an Army chaplain, and the District Superintendent for the Church of the Nazarene in Alaska. He is an incredible man, who is quite possibly the most down to earth Senior Church leader that I have ever met. Not that those are rare, I doubt that they are - he is just strikingly real and sincere in faith. I cannot imagine a better Superintendent (and he does not read this blog - so that cannot be misconstrued as flattery).



Gets me to thinking about myself when I am around folks like that - and how I want much more to be transparent, and at the same time more faithful. Those who know me well know how inadequate I have often felt as any sort of Christian leader. (Please do NOT respond to this with comments to the contrary - that is not my purpose!!! - just an attempt at greater transparency.) I think too, that I have wasted much time in wishing to be much more than I am - on some grander scale - and failing to be consistent in smaller things. Things like, routine - daily time with God in prayer and the scriptures, daily prayer with my family (when I am home). I suppose if I could name just two things that are so needful for me - those are the two.



I was looking at some old pictures with my dad the other morning (before catching a flight out of Dallas) - one was the living room of his family home in Laredo, Texas. His father and mother spent more than thirty years in one Salvation Army Corps in Laredo - how common is that these days? Anyway, he told me that his family spent most every morning in prayer together in that living room. How simple, and what a profound influence that must have had on the whole family.



Lord, shape that kind of consistency into my life - for the sake of my wife and children, for my own, and especially that You would be pleased and glorified in me. Shape us around the little consistencies that add up to a grand life with You.



Sorry this is short - but I will be told any moment now, "computer 17, your time is up."



matthew