We Need Each Other

I'm beginning to realize what a treasure it is to have my husband come home each evening. I often look across the dinner table at Nathan, thanking God for allowing him to be here with me that day. I know the time will soon come when duty calls him away, and we have to say goodbye.

The reality of military life sets in as I meet woman after woman who has just said goodbye to her husband as he leaves for a deployment. Some are newly married. Some have just given birth to a child. Some will be left alone to give birth while their husbands are away. Whatever the circumstances surrounding each separation, the heartache is so evident. I see it firsthand now.

I am so thankful to God that all across this globe there are local bodies of believers to love and care for these families. I thank Him that though Nathan will leave someday, I will not be alone. Not only has God Himself promised to be an ever-present help to me, He has also called His children to bear one another's burdens and care for those in need. What a blessing it has been to see our church family here live out that responsibility as they walk with these military families and surround them with prayer and sacrificial love.

The family of God is a beautiful thing - a thing I'm so grateful I do not live without. We need each other. I see and understand it now more than ever.

"Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God."

1 Peter 1:22-23