Nine years ago today, I was in the middle of all this: I would say it was a typical August day in northwest Arkansas, but according to weather underground it was a much cooler than normal 75-degree day. Evil doesn't rest, though, and tragedy strikes even in the midst of joy and beauty. Around 7,000 miles away on the other side of the world, my brother was killed. Look over here if you want to read that story, because this one takes a little different turn. Fast forward a few weeks, to when the shock was starting to wear off. My brother was gone, and I was mad. Not at the war or at the man who killed him--war brings death as part of its natural order, and the man who shot my brother was, to me anyway, like him in the fact that he was a soldier--albeit the enemy--fighting for his beliefs. I wasn't mad at God, not really. Pop was. He had made a promise that he would never talk to God again if He ever took one of us kids, and for a while that was the case.
just me, stepping out of the boat in faith, trying not to focus on the waves around me