The urine seemed embedded in his wheelchair, but his friend just kept steering him into the exam room as if not to notice. I’m sure he didn’t anymore.
I noticed.
I politely thanked the man for bringing in his buddy. He nodded, took off his “Viet Vet” cap and turned his friend’s chair to face me.
“How do you guys know each other?” I asked to avoid the Cerebral-Palsy pink elephant in the room.
“Oh,” he quickly replied. “We got history.”
His tone carried an empathy that was a little hard not to notice. That made me resist asking him about when he was over in ‘Nam. Somehow, it seemed obvious that he had been there too long.
This wasn’t a warts-and-wrinkles discussion in a 9 x 12 room.
“We got history.” I mused about that while trying to remain in the role of an attentive practitioner.
How in the world did all this make me drift toward pondering God’s relationship with Old Testament and contemporary Israel?
Could it be that we all need someone who’s “been through the war” to war for us?
PORTAL TO HEAVEN: Suffering and witnessing pain and death is what makes a veteran a veteran.
[He] comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God…“The Lord is a warrior; The Lord is His name…A bruised reed He will not break...The Lord will go forth like a warrior, He will arouse His zeal like a man of war. He will utter a shout, yes, He will raise a war cry. He will prevail against His enemies…[Jesus] felt compassion for her…
2 Corinthians 1:4 NIV, Exodus 15:3 NASB, Isaiah 42:3,13 NASB, Luke 7:13 NASB. Editor's brackets.