In my mind, every Veteran’s Day (originally known as Armistice Day for the end ‘the war to end all wars’) I remember the moment I fell in love with history.

You see I had the privilege of growing up around not just my grandparents and great aunts and uncles, but my great great aunts and uncles as well. They were on my mom’s side of the family.  A family that has been around since the founding of Charlotte, that lived and built lives in Davidson, and eventually moved back to First Ward in Charlotte. Their lives have been etched into the history of this town, and yet one family member was almost forgotten until one afternoon.

I sat, on the white couch in the formal living room of a duplex in Myers Park (back when Myers Park was not what it is now) while my family went through things in the house because a family member had passed away.  Somewhere in the process my grandmother came across a chest that had a 48 star flag, a large oval formal military portrait, and several other items that none of us had ever seen before.  The last remaining sibling (Vada North Bratton aka Rosie) didn’t remember much, but remembered atleast that the items were of an older brother …William Ray Bratton.

Ray had, like so many youth during the World War I, I believe wanted not just to serve his country, but for adventure.  They were of a youthful generation who did not fully know the affects and consequences of war.  He joined against the wishes of his parents, who at the time had already lost a daughter at a young age to scarlet fever.  He wanted to enlist so much that he lied by one year of his age to get in.  Leaving his parents and a younger brother Paige at home, he joined the generation Charlotte that enlisted at Camp Green and went “over there”.

What we know after that is little.  We have just one telegraph he sent home in which he asked how everyone was and how Paige was doing.  We have the telegraphs announcing his death in France from an infection that had set into a wound. A letter from an American Red Cross nurse who treated him, saw him pass, and sent a lock of his hair home to his mother and dad. Another letter detailing his funeral and grave site in France. All the while, I try to imagine what it must have been like with each of those telegraphs and letters coming from the mailman to the hands of his parents. How they’re hearts must have broken to receive his flag, his military id.  To perhaps wish that he had been one of the few to come home.

I’m not much of a patriotic person. But I believe that it is good to set aside a day like today.  Remember not just those who have fought or are fighting, but remember the lost generations.  The generations that never came home. That never got spoken of.  Those in your own family that have maybe gotten forgotten along the way. Pray for those who are still soldiering on overseas today. Thank the veterans around you that tend to be overlooked…the Korean War, the Cold War veterans.

In a day when war tends to be thought of in our minds as being ‘not here’ but somewhere ‘out there’, remember the cost of war. From Antietam, to Iwo Jima, to Afghanistan  remember that war is not a game…it is a real entity where real lives, civilian and military, are lost or saved. Wither you’re pacifist or not, a patriot or not…real families and real people still today as Ray’s parents did receive news of their sons and daughter’s life or death. Pray for them today.  And if you believe in Christ and the Second Coming as I do, pray for His return where “He will judge between the nations and will settle disputes for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore.” Isaiah 2:4

You Lord are our stronghold,

our fortress,

our protector whose love knows

no bounds.

You Lord give mercy to all

who seek,

deliverer,

rescuerer whose kindness

delights.

You Lord give comfort to us

who worry,

healer,

confidant in whom we

can trust.

All the world’s a flutter,

all the world’s a glow,

all the world’s lost in ebb

and flow.

 

Some spin round and round,

some shake their fists at the sky,

some stomp their feet on the ground,

all the while wondering why-why.

 

Change erupts from every corner,

change snakes from every board,

change demands more change,

till all the house is on the floor.

Hope lives deep,

down within the soul,

where faith eclipses fear,

and light draws near and dear.

It sustains us,

when all feels lost,

as our faith questions ourselves,

and draws us nearer to God somehow.

Veteran’s day always brings to mind two people from my family from long ago.

My great-great aunt Rosie (Vada North Bratton) whose birthday would have been today I believe.  And her oldest brother Ray.

 

William Ray Bratton was born at the turn of the 20th century.  He was 17 years old when he joined the army to go off and fight in World War I.  He grew up in an age in Charlotte’s history and national history when the streets were filled with streetcars and the air was full of idealistic, naive patriotism. So full was his idealism and craving for adventure, that against his parents wishes he lied about his age (by one year) and went off to war.  Their first-born son (their first-born daughter Ruby had died at 2 of scarlet fever) would find himself a mechanic in trench warfare.  He eventually was shot in France and died because of an infection.  His body was buried in France, and some very kind nurse there took a lock of his hair and mailed it along with a letter back to his mom, Annie Bratton. His body was later moved from France, and it is now in the overflow World War I section of Arlington National Cemetery.

 

His life…was largely forgotten.   Parent’s consumed by grief I figure, and the next eldest sibling Page (a few years younger) I don’t think talked about the brother who had sent the family at least one telegraph seeing how everyone was and wondering how young Page was doing with girls.  He wasn’t really remembered until one afternoon sitting in a house off Queens Road in Charlotte.  His younger siblings (my great-greats) Paige and Dolly (Johnsie May) had passed away.  Rosie (Vada North) was left as we went through and cleaned out the house of Dolly’s belongings.  Somewhere in the process a box in a hallway was found….with a 48 star flag.  Who on earth in our family would have a 48 star flag we asked?   Though I remember it vaguely, I suppose my grandmother and Rosie put together the pieces of the story.

Then came out Ray’s identification wallet, a large oval portrait taken with him in his uniform….and the metal markings from his casket from it being shipped from France to Arlington.

I had the honor of growing up knowing his siblings….Aunt Rosie who always had an amazing sense of fashion and Aunt Dolly who was an incredible cook. his brother Paige who was tall and quiet, but always had a Hershey chocolate bar for his great-great niece.  His brother Fred, and Jack who was by far the most amazing great-grandfather I could have ever had and whose love of golf was unsurpassed.  But that day…sitting on the white couch that no generation dared get its feet on…I got to know a man I’d never met. Those artifacts from his life drove a passion for history in me, and a passion for oral history so that perhaps another life wouldn’t be placed in a box like his.

 

I have spent a life time studying war and history and believe that no matter what you believe about war or patriotism, the final cost of war is not just a life that is lost…but generations of lives that are touched from that loss.

 

If you are or know a Veteren, seek out a local or national oral history project to record their experiences and memories.  Or simply find a recorder or a video camera, and ask them to tell their story.  Generations from now will appreciated it very much indeed.

I usually don’t comment on such things, but…this hit high on my annoyance scale this morning.

History repeats itself I believe because we never learn and by our very nature don’t want to do good things. The US took over Texas by building homes and communities there when it still belonged to Mexico.  Europe during World War II walled in thousands of it’s population (religious groups, disabled, etc).  Sound familiar?

http://www.jpost.com/Features/FrontLines/Article.aspx?id=170829

Oh Israel hear that the Lord your God is one and trust in Him again.

This is why Christ called us to love our neighboors, to love our enemies, and to love God above all else.   How dear children and beloved of God can you wall in others and restrict the freedoms of others when you have had your freedoms and rights taken from you for thousands of years.  Evidence I suppose that sometimes we become what we most hate and fear.  Evidence I believe that we all need the forgiveness of the Lord.

An insert in our church bulletin this past week had an article called “New Things on the Horizon.”  It uses beautiful imagery of dark winter passing and Spring and hope being on the way.  I immediately was drawn to the verse it used which has always been a favorite:

“See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?” Isaiah 43:19

How often we miss that God is doing good things in our lives even in the midst of difficult times.  The last words of the article read, “The dark days of winter are past and hope springs eternal. Our Lord believes in you.”

I might disagree on the word choice of “believes” in us, perphaps “love” would be better.  Do we remember that though?  After years of dark winters that seemed to last the year through, it’s incredibly reassuring and inspiring to remember our Lord does love me and does have good plans for me.  After four years which each began with a funeral….I need a Spring.

Yesterday as we drove up in our driveway after a long day at work, I happened to notice some daffodils blooming in our yard.  It’s a bit of a tradition of mine to go pick a couple of the first of them that I see.  To me placing those flowers (I don’t pick all of them lol) in my kitchen window is like a breath of hope from God…Spring…life…hope…always comes.

With that in mind…my garden is planted for Spring.  Sugar peas, green onions, radishes, spinach, and collards   And I’m going to sit down soon with the seed catalog that came in and pick out summer’s crop: some different types of tomatoes, peppers, and herbs. My goal is to do some canning this year (at least the tomatoes), drying (try my hand at dehydrating beans), and some freezing. Last year we did great at eating pretty much everything the garden produced as it produced it.  This year I want to put some up for the winter.  I sincerely missed having my garden veggies this winter.

I’ve been absent from blogging because well….as the title of this blog is “Adventures in Christ”…my husband and I have had to deal with some adventures.  Mostly sad, difficult adventures, but I’m determined that there are good ones ahead of us somewhere.

Life with God is a constant adventure.  Use to in my naive youth, I woke up expecting only good adventures.  It’s taken some years of walking with Him to understand that some adventures have to be difficult in our path of knowing Him.

“1 Then Job replied to the Lord: 2 “I know that you can do all things; no plan of yours can be thwarted. 3 [You asked,] ‘Who is this that obscures my counsel without knowledge?’ Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know. 4 ["You said,] ‘Listen now, and I will speak; I will question you, and you shall answer me.’ 5 My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. 6 Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.”" Job 42, 1-6 NIV

Five years ago I would say that “my ears had heard of you…”, five years later with heart that has learned to be broken and accepting of God’s will (for the most part…I am human lol) I am more “now my eyes have seen you.”   It is one thing to know God (even in your heart) and another to see God.  How sovereign, powerful, merciful, and amazing He is.  What I would call ‘awe’ of God. We know from the Lord that there is a season of everything and that He uses each season to mold us.  As I enter into a time of the year of anniversaries of grief and passing, I look forward to the hope of heaven and resurrection.  That like Lent being followed with the celebration of Easter, Christ’s days in the grave followed by joy…there is coming a beautiful day, a resurrection day, a day of hope when every tear will be wiped away.

“Sometimes it’s in an instant. Sometimes we wait for years. But it comes down to the moment when faith eclipses fear.” (Suddenly by Toby Mac)

What would our lives look like if we allowed our faith to eclipse our fear?  I’m not just considering the usual fear of telling people we know about Christ (though that definitely is in the thought mix I have in my mind).   Ever have a big idea you felt was from God but seemed so God sized that it frightened you?  Ever think that God gave you a talent for something, but you’re too afraid to use it? What calling in your life could you fulfill if you listened to the whispering voice of faith instead of the bellowing voice of fear?

Several weeks ago, the Spring/Summer garden was failing and had met its end.  Even being the new gardener I am, I knew what work needed to be done.  So I set out with some tools and dug the old, decaying plants up, tossed them in the compost, and planted new seeds.  In this case, collards and kale for the Fall.  That was several weeks ago.  At one point, it looked like the new, young plants were near death’s door from an insect that had decided to make my garden their new home.  That was that.

Until last night anyhow.  I walked out to the garden to check on some gourd vines that are growing (and that I thought had taken over the spot next door to them where the collards and kale had been) and was surprised by a row of vibrant, growing collards and kale.  With no help from me or lack of help from the local insect population, they were thriving.  Thriving enough to provide themselves for dinner last night and probably a few to come.

One of the hardest lessons in life is learning to trust God.  Often in life, we feel near the end of the rope ourselves and difficult to grasp God’s plan in it all.  He gives enough light to the path to see the next step.  But even the next step takes great trust because I’m still making sense of what He’s done before.  Though I have never heard a Christian admit it aloud,  how many of us inside ourselves can admit to being unsure of God’s guidance.  I consider it awe.  For I am both in awe of God for His mightiness and in fear of the same power He has over all things. Think of it as the perspective of Job.  For he knew how powerfully God could take and how powerfully God could give. The lesson of trust is to hold to faith from Job chapter 1 to the end.  To hold to faith through the process.

You see somewhere between assuming those plants were gone to their soil and dirt deaths and their amazing thriving existence was a process.  A process which made absolutely no sense to me, only that that what looked lost is now thriving.  But then we are all lost and undergoing series of processes called life to make us into His image.

It’s during the process we have to hold to faith.  Remember that Jesus was the same yesterday and will be always and that God knows what He has planned for you.