Brothers (and sisters) In Arms

Some song lyrics challenge me; some connect me to emotions I previously didn't have vocabulary for; some evoke a memory of times past.

These lyrics remind me of those I've done christian ministry with...to borrow a phrase from another...wounded healers:

Through these fields of destruction
Baptisms of fire
I've watched all your suffering
As the battles raged higher
And though they did hurt me so bad
In the fear and alarm
You did not desert me
My brothers in arms

-by Mark Knopfler From Dire Straits 1985 album 'Brothers in Arms'

Some who dared such feats of ministering to a broken world sometimes came away from the field of battle wounded ourselves, only to find that the unit we fought with had no MASH unit. For others of us, serving on such fields only served to remind us of the wounds that had never healed in us in the first place from when we ourselves had previously dwelt in similar desolate places. Some of us found solace in the arms of a committed lover. Some of us returned to former addictions that had bound us long ago. Some of us have no peace to this day, and we wander this world seemingly all alone in battles we are convinced no one else could understand.

I pray for myself and all of you that we would know the healer. He is the same who called us into battle to begin with. The battle still rages higher, and though we still be hurt so badly, 'there is a banqueting table the Father and his Son have prepared'. I will count it a privilege to dine with you there, along with those whom have been invited by us, 'both good and evil'.

As Knopfler writes further:

Some day you'll return to
Your valleys and your farms
And you'll no longer burn
To be brothers in arms

See you at the table.

David