I have been thinking a lot about the depth of emotions lately. You can imagine with saying good bye to my wife and caring for the injured and dealing with those who have died or are dying, I am living in a sea of emotions.

One of my favorite war movies is: “We Were Soldiers”. The reason is, in part, due to the way the film handles the other tragedies of wars and that is the families who are left behind and must come to grips with the injury or death of a loved one. There is a scene at the end of the movie, where the door bell rings at the house of LTC Hal Moore. It is late at night and his wife looks out the window to see who is there. What she sees is a Yellow Cab, the exact type that delivers telegrams notifying the wives that their husband has died in battle. She starts to cry and demands that the children go up stairs. She opens the door only to find her husband standing at the door. Her emotions poured forward as she was transformed from a grieving spouse to a celebrating wife.

My wife and I enjoy watching Extreme Makeover Home Edition. In this reality show, ABC picks a family who has had an enormous tragedy and completely renovates their home and usually pays off the mortgage and gives the children college scholarships. There are always tears on both sides of the TV as those who had almost nothing are given just about everything they could ask for. If it were not for their desperate state, the height of emotion would not be there. Imagine Donald Trump receiving a 3000 Sq Ft home in middle America, with a 32 inch plasma TV, custom kitchen, bedrooms, and bath and a pool. I doubt that he would cry with joy.

I think that there is a limit to how positive our emotions we can be; however, I do not think there is any limit to how bad things can get. Imagine the worst thing that you could think happening to you. For a service member it is probably being captured and held like those in the Hanoi Hilton. Little food, beatings, sickness, loneliness, isolation; but then there is always a chance that someone could come and stick a needle in your eye and make it worse. What I am trying to say is that the height of the emotion is dependent on how bad things were/are not how good things become. I think about my goodbye with my wife. The tears come from not only the thought of separation for 4 months but for the very real possibility that I may not return. The closer I am to harms way the greater the depth of the emotion when I return. This holds true when someone who is not expected to graduate college, or make the pros, or survive cancer, makes it through triumphantly. We love those stories. I dream about the day when I get to see my wife in airport on my arrival. The harder and more dangerous it gets over here the greater it will be to arrive safely home to her warm embrace. Jesus talks about this in a sense when he is speaking about those who have lived horribly sinful lives and then have been forgiven by His grace and live victorious lives through the power of the Holy Spirit. Luke 7:47 “Therefore I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven; that is why she loved much. But the one who is forgiven little, loves little.” The depth of the transformation is what makes them love Him more than others who have been forgiven of less.

It is so nice to fantasize about the emotional high. The stories of highs that are made into movies. As I watch those movies, I often desire to have that kind of emotional high, but what I have realized and question more recently is whether I really want to go through the low of fear, loneliness, financial, physical, emotional and spiritual torment that make a story worthy of a movie. Sometimes we don’t have a choice and it is the life we have been given.

The next time you see someone in a military uniform come off a plane and see the family come running to them with tears in their eyes and hold onto them and never want to let them go, again, appreciate how low it must have been for that family and rejoice with them now…..it might be me and my wife.

Romans 12:15 “Rejoice with those who rejoice; weep with those who weep.”

More thoughts to come

Solis Deo Gloria