What happened to my husband?

Lauren’s Journal…

“Where is my husband? Who is this man that they sent home to me? There must be some mistake! I pick up the morning paper and read the names of the fallen.  Jason’s name is not listed among the dead, and for this I am eternally grateful.  Yet, I ache for myself.  My heart breaks for both of us.  Sometimes I feel like my marriage died for my country.  Jason is not the man who deployed.  We are not the same couple who tearfully said goodbye all those months ago.

“God protected Jason, but God didn’t protect him.  I prayed Psalm 91 for Jason every day, many times a day, believing God would shield him, cover him, even make him bulletproof.  I prayed for him the minute I awakened, as I got our kids ready for school, as I stood in bank lines, as I waited in traffic, as I washed the dinner dishes, then outside looking up into the stars and the rising moon, and finally as I lay in our bed alone…over and over I prayed for his safety.  I never knew to pray for Jason’s mind.

“I just assumed that if he returned to me physically whole, then everything would be fine.  I was wrong.  The war has come home with Jason.  The war has walked right through our front door uninvited.  It sits on our sofa, rides in our car with us, and eats our meals with us.  The war is here 24/7.

“Jason’s pain seems to be contagious.  He’s been home for a while and we are all hurting now.  We stand back and can only watch as Jason wrestles an unseen monster, day after day, night after night.

“Sometimes he seems pretty normal, but then something happens and this mysterious beast emerges breathing fire, vomiting the contents of its wounded soul all over everyone.  The children and I stand speechless, afraid, confused, angry–sometimes at Jason, sometimes at the beast that this war conceived in my beloved’s soul, writhing in its personal agony, imprisoned in its own pain and anchored to this war.

“Why? Why Jason?  I’m out of answers. I’m even out of questions.”*

Are you, like Lauren, out of answers or even questions?  Military wives and wives of veterans across the country are meeting in small support groups, finding support, help and encouragement through the book, “When War Comes Home.”  Contact us to see if there is a group in your area… or if you have a group others should know about.

(*Excerpted from “When War Comes Home” by Chris Adsit, Rahnella Adsit and Marshéle Waddell)