What do you need? What do I need? What is the greatest need we all have as humans?
You need love. I need love. We all need to be loved. It is our greatest need.
People can meet that need. Some will love us. The fortunate ones are loved from the moment of their birth. Their family is crazy about them. Some are not so fortunate.
Back in the 1980s my two year old son was in the hospital for two weeks with a broken femur. It was a nasty break. He was in the pediatric unit with his legs strapped up in traction. In the room next to us there was an infant, a baby boy about two months old. This baby was born with multiple birth defects. His hands and feet were bound in wrappings and it was mentioned to me that he had hydrocephalus as well. The room where he lay in a crib was always dark. Never once did I see a visitor or family member in his room and I was at the hospital every day. The on-duty nurse would care for him, but no one held him for more than a few minutes at a time. Rarely was he taken out of the room. The little guy seemed abandoned, unwanted, and he seemed to receive only the basics of care. It made me wonder the particulars. It bothered me. I felt it in my maternal heart, that he was being withheld from bonding with an adult, as if his little life didn’t matter. We need love to survive. He needed love. That was the point. The neglect of one so young hurt me to watch.
Some have known so little love.
There is one who meets our love-hunger need. It is Jesus. He meets our need to be loved regardless of what the world around us should imply about our worth and value. Jesus walks with us. He talks with us. He listens to our woes and celebrates our joys. Jesus caries our burdens and lifts our cares, even when we are too weary to ask him to do that for us.
Jesus loves you. He always will love you. You can count on his love. It never fails. Never, ever fails. You can take that to the bank!
A TABLE IN THE PRESENCE by Lt. Carey H. Cash (Presidio Press, 2005)
YOU WERE THERE: A Table in the Presence
is a gripping account from before and during the invasion that began The War In Iraq told through the eyes of a U. S. Marine chaplain. For several different reasons, I appreciate this book. Most importantly, it tells the story from on the ground as if you are there among the United States service personnel. I am not a military person. I don’t read books about past wars, and I have limited understanding of military protocol or procedure. Yet, I find this book to be poignant and personal, a well-said account of a difficult period in U S wartime history. The way Lt. Cash, a chaplain, describes the step-by-step maneuvers makes one feel that you are there with them, waiting and waiting. Then creeping with the convoy when it’s time to move out. When the invasion begins, for a chaplain not carrying a weapon, it has an added dimension of danger. Certain scenes are touching to me: Holy communion is given by catholic and protestant chaplains and shared among the men during a tense time of uncertainty. The men know they are staring down death. The mood is sober, the eternal is close. Another scene; a few hundred Iraqi children are discovered hidden in a warehouse, held as captives to be used for manipulative purposes. The U. S. liberates them. The children’s release is one positive in the nightmare. Regardless of how you feel about the invasion and The War in Iraq, this book is interesting and informative. Some Amazon reviewers are concerned that Cash’s viewpoint is that God is on America’s side. I didn’t take it that way. I believe he is illustrating the presence of God during such times but specific to the invasion. It would be wrong for him to not state what he experiences even if we may disagree with his interpretation. After-all, it is his personal account. Not everyone makes it out alive. You feel the grief. For a parent who has a son or daughter in the military, like I do, this book has a secondary level of interest. A Table in the Presence will hold your interest and then some.
Back in the 1980s my two year old son was in the hospital for two weeks with a broken femur. It was a nasty break. He was in the pediatric unit with his legs strapped up in traction. In the room next to us there was an infant, a baby boy about two months old. This baby was born with multiple birth defects. His hands and feet were bound in wrappings and it was mentioned to me that he had hydrocephalus as well. The room where he lay in a crib was always dark. Never once did I see a visitor or family member in his room and I was at the hospital every day. The on-duty nurse would care for him, but no one held him for more than a few minutes at a time. Rarely was he taken out of the room. The little guy seemed abandoned, unwanted, and he seemed to receive only the basics of care. It made me wonder the particulars. It bothered me. I felt it in my maternal heart, that he was being withheld from bonding with an adult, as if his little life didn’t matter. We need love to survive. He needed love. That was the point. The neglect of one so young hurt me to watch.