What Wounded Warriors Need

In Balad, Iraq, the Army doctors told our son, Aric, he would need skin grafts for his third degree burns. In Germany, the Army doctors told him he would need skin grafts. At Andrews Air Force Base, they told Aric he would need skin grafts. His plane was diverted to Illinois and he was evaluated there and told that he would need skin grafts. A week after the initial injury, he arrived at the burn unit at Brooke Medical Hospital in San Antonio, Texas. The doctors in Texas explained that he would be in the hospital for at least forty-five days after skin graft surgery.



    Aric’s father asked his adult Sunday school class to pray for our son on Sunday. On the following Tuesday, the doctors of one of the premier burn units in the United States removed our son’s bandage . . . and discharged him from the hospital.



    Now there are a couple ways of looking at stuff like this. One, we got lucky, or two, we got a miracle.



    If I credit luck, I will be respected by the sophisticated, rational, and scientific world, also by my college classmates and teachers, because to many of them life is a random series of electrical jolts, and there is no one out there.  Tempting—but no.



    If I choose to believe in a miracle, it will be because I am weak and damaged—needing the old faith to endure the horror that is this random series of electrical jolts.



    Okay, I am weak and damaged. I don't know anyone who isn't.  I need to believe in miracles because it makes me happy to believe in a Father in Heaven who hears and answers my prayers, or if He cannot answer them will comfort me in unexplainable, un-provable, spiritual ways. It’s like the smell of chocolate chip cookies fresh out of the oven.



    Next to Brooke Medical Hospital is the Wounded Warrior Village (built and operated totally with donations.) It’s a kind of giant home away from home for the wounded soldiers, with video games, movies, and home made cookies baking 24/7, because it’s hard to be hurting and a long, long way from home. Aric says there are volunteers who man the ovens day and night, to keep those cookies baking, and let’s face it, there’s nothing that says, “Mom and home,” like the smell of chocolate chip cookies—straight out of the oven. It isn’t the same as home, but it’s a gentle reminder that home is still there.



    To my educated friends, who believe in nothing, I would say that to feel the spirit of God, to see the hand of the divine in everything, to see miracles where others only see luck, is like the smell of chocolate chip cookies baking. It isn’t the same as home, but it’s a gentle reminder that home is still there.



Linda (I Believe) Zern