Today I have a dear friend that God so graciously placed in my life who is embarking on the same journey we started not long ago….only hers is so much more than mine.  I sent one son to serve but had 3 beautiful kids still at home.  She is sending her two sons, her only children to boot camp at this very moment.  She will walk back into her home to be greeted by silence.  There will be no more crazy game nights playing chicken foot…no more arguments about silly sibling things…no more birthday cakes…no more family drives to Texas…no more lots of things like Easter, Mother’s Day, Birthdays…but there are new things that will bring joy too…

There will be pride in what her sons have chosen to do…there is the absolute unadulterated joy at that first letter in the mail and every one after that….there is the feeling she will get when she knows her boys have passed one stage, and then the next and then the last and hardest; the Crucible….there is the moment she will hear their voices for the first time since they left home…there is the sight of their new, manly faces after 13 weeks of the hardest recruit training in the military…there is the first hug that feels like home….there is the hours spent on family day just staring at their beautiful faces…there is the new way that they walk through the world…the way they stand at ease no matter where they are…there is walking through the mall and having a stranger thank them for their service…there is their presence in her home for a few precious days when it is all over.  It is like nothing else and there will never be anything else like it.

So as her boys swear in and say goodbye, I thank her.  I thank her for her sacrifice, for her way of being graceful in the choice her children have made.  I thank her for allowing herself to be drafted when they made that choice.  I thank her for the children she and her husband raised…the way they are strong and willing to do what others cannot do.  I thank her for giving her boys to our country, because that is what she has done.  They will always be her sons, but she has given them to us so that we may remain free.  I thank her when thanks is not enough.  I pray for their well being…that they remain healthy and strong…that they hear the voice of their Father in Heaven when they are struggling…that they lean into Him when all else fails.  I pray that they have the strength to put one foot in front of the other when there is nothing left inside to continue on. But most of all, I pray that they feel the love of those who are far away but stand behind them in everything they are endeavoring to do….that they would know without a shadow of a doubt that they are not forgotten and that they are loved!