This I Believe

God does not make life difficult in order to laugh at our feeble attempts, but rather because he loves us and he knows that in the end it will strengthen us…
It was as if I had been pushing the inevitable to the back of my mind, unwilling to face the truth of what was to come. We walked over to the counter and placed our tickets on top. I scanned the glass case underneath the countertop, in which lay an array of prizes; ranging from a small rubber bouncy ball to a rather large stuffed animal. The woman at the counter counted up our tickets and pointed to the top shelf, telling us, we could choose from any of the items there. My younger siblings, eager as ever to claim their prizes, immediately began pointing at the desired objects. My eyes glanced over a few of the items, a bouncy ball, some Laffy Taffy’s, some stickers as well as other miscellaneous things. Nothing seemed to interest me.
I began to feel a lump growing in the back of my throat. The excitement and fun of the day now over, I was left with inevitable staring me in the face. Unable to run from it any longer, the tears began to well up in my eyes. I looked over to where my family still sat, investigating the prizes. My dad looked over his shoulder at me. “Do you know what you want?” He asked gently. I mumbled something about letting the boys use my tickets and wandered over to a solitary bench, sitting down.
A few moments later my dad appeared at my side and sat down next to me. I stared off towards the golf course forcing my thoughts to turn away from the pain. Fathers showing children how to hit the golf ball towards the hole in the center of a sea of green, their laughter and cries of frustration when the ball narrowly missed the hole; it all seemed so unreal.
“What’s wrong?” My dad ventured. I paused, trying to get a hold of my emotions and the turmoil that was threatening to burst forth at any moment. With a shaky voice I said: “I don’t want you to leave.”
My dad stared back and answered “I don’t want to go either…. But I have to. I know it will be hard for me to leave you guys and mom. It will be really weird at first, but I will still call you and we can talk over the phone.” He paused. “Besides, the time will fly by, and before you know it I’ll be back.” I stared up at my dad, feeling slightly better and more in control at having spoken the words that expressed what I had been feeling, but had not wanted to realize. Slowly we both stood and embraced. Tears began to flow freely now as I wrapped my arms around the man who meant the most to me, the man that I respected, looked up to and admired. He smiled down at me and I smiled back as we both turned to rejoin our family.
The following morning, overcast as it was, saw us saying good bye to dad and sending him off to fight for the freedom of our country. Saying goodbye was hard, and I am positive that it was not easy for my dad to have to leave us and go to war in another country. Reflecting back on it now, I wonder why my dad had felt so strongly that he needed to stay in the army even after his first activation. It has occurred to me that the Lord may have had something in store for our family. God was not mocking our happiness, nor was he putting us to the test because of a lack of love or concern for our wellbeing. No indeed, his very purpose in giving us this trial was so that we could grow together and become stronger for it.
I will never forget the lessons learned from that experience in our lives. My mom and dad put extreme faith in the Lord by trusting him when my dad felt the need to stay in the army. There were things that he saw and learned there that he could never have experienced elsewhere. There were things that we learned as a family that could only be learned through this experience. And we are better for it because we now trust in the Lord and feel his love for us each and every day.