PUT ME BACK TOGETHER AGAIN

 NOVEMBER 9, 2022

Today's Devotion is a revision of one that I wrote in 2020.
I believe it is on an issue that is important to highlight on a week of Remembrance. The scars of war and service go deeper than any physical wound.

 

Jeremiah 17:14 (The Message)

God, pick up the pieces.
Put me back together again

The Rev. Harold Appleyard served as a military chaplain during the Second World War. He joined the Grey and Simcoe Foresters in 1941 as their unit chaplain. Almost as soon as he landed, the destruction in England struck him as appalling. He quickly began to collect shards of stained glass from the shattered windows of damaged churches and began to envision using them for a memorial window at his parish church. On volunteer fire duty one night in the dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, he met an architect responsible for London’s ancient churches, who referred him to the Cox and Barnard Stained Glass Works in Hove, Sussex. The firm offered to design and re-lead the glass into windows to fit Appleyard’s Meaford, Ontario church, Christ Church Anglican, free of charge in gratitude for the Canadian war effort.

The Rev. Appleyard retrieved glass from churches in France, Belgium, and Holland, and a year after the war ended, the church unveiled the windows as memorials to the parishioners and townspeople who had been killed or wounded during the years of fighting.

The broken pieces of glass make me think of the many service personal who returned home alive. Many of them broken by what their eyes saw and what the war required of them. Shell Shocked, Battle Fatigue, Operational Exhaustion, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, these are the names that have been given to the emotional toll that war takes on soldiers. I am sure some of you have family members who served Canada in various wars, but who would never want to talk about the war experience. There is good reason for that.

Trauma is a horrific experience, its affect on the central nervous system because of the stress of life experiences can be devastating. The stories of soldiers returning home from battle, barely being able to function, the wounds of their experience spilling over into their family life with tragic outcomes, their loss of hope, and the tearfully heart wrenching stories of those who have taken their own lives. So, when I think of Rev Appleyard picking up pieces of broken glass I think of the broken pieces of the lives of veterans and their families.

I also thought of the words of Jeremiah 17:14, a prayer which says "God, pick up the pieces. Put me back together again." Have you ever prayed those words, or similar words about your own life experiences? Sure, we all have at some point, haven’t we? When in desperation we cry out to God, for ourselves, a family member, or a friend.

Throughout the scriptures God speaks into our lives words that talk of rebuilding what has been broken or destroyed, renewing the lives of his people, by the promise of fresh hope. One of the passages that always grabs me is Isaiah 61. Now, these are the words that Jesus read in the Synagogue in Capernaum, and when he finished reading them, he said, “these words are fulfilled in your hearing this day.” Read these words, below and allow the hope and promise of God’s word to penetrate your spirit today. This is a promise to all, fulfilled in your hearing this day.

Isaiah 61

The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners,
2 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion — to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.
They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor. They will rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated; they will renew the ruined cities.


Did you notice the promises?

· to proclaim good news to the poor

· to bind up the brokenhearted

· to proclaim freedom for the captives

· release from darkness for the prisoners

· to comfort all who mourn,

· and provide for those who grieve

· to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair

· rebuild the ancient ruins

· restore the places long devastated.

These are God’s promise to us all. God promises to come alongside of us in our difficulties, alongside those who are brokenhearted in need of emotion healing and without hope, alongside to comfort, release, rebuild and restore.

As today I remember those who live with the lasting effects of their service to our country, who struggle with trauma, with PTSD. I am thankful for their service, but I am also thankful for those brave souls who have given themselves to treatments, although these opportunities are in short supply, they have allowed us to understand the impacts of the trauma of war, which has led to an understanding of trauma in other contexts. The trauma of childhood sexual, physical, emotional abuse, the violence of rape, gun violence, robbery, the trauma of poverty, ….. and so on. I for one, as a trauma survivor, would not be writing this today if it were not for their bravery to confront their trauma head on and the treatments that are now available for so many.

Let us never forget those who carry the scars of war and their need of our prayers, compassion and the message of hope that God promises to all. ‘I give you peace, the kind of peace that only I can give. It isn’t like the peace that this world can give. So don’t be worried or afraid.’ John 14:27

PRAYER

O Lord, many of us have tears deep inside of our lives, because we’ve been hurt in ways that go to the very core of our being, and some of the hurts we carry around have been there for a long, long time – even for years. We experienced a loss from which even today we have not really recovered. We took a beating that ripped into our heart and soul and tore us apart at the deepest place in our life. We went through the betrayal of a trust, the betrayal of a friendship, and still today we find ourselves dealing with its aftereffects and its residue. We suffered the unforgivable at the hands of a parent or the hands of someone we loved, and there’s a scar there that breaks open over and over again.

O God, you are the one who looks way down deep inside of all of us. You see and know what no one knows, no one at all except we ourselves. And, not only do you see us and know us, but you also feel things along with us, even the very painful stuff, the deep stuff along with us, and we feel a strange kind of healing taking place. We are no longer left alone with our burdens.

Today, those of us who are struggling inside – who have been broken and hurt and still feel the tears within – we thank you for being there and sharing with us what we cannot bear alone.

Written by U.S. Military Chaplain Richard A. Lutz