THE RUDDER

For many years after the horrors I witnessed and perpetrated in war, I was cursed with what the shrinks call PTSD, or PostTraumatic Stress Disorder.

Time after time I would awake in the middle of the night, bathed in a cold sweat, shaking, terrified, and unable to go back to sleep because I feared another instant replay of being chased through dark putrid jungles, watching good friends die, villages burn, civilians weeping, and other gruesome reminders of my past.

After a while those dreams became so unbearable, I consulted the Veterans Administration and joined a Vietnam Veterans Outreach group. The object of this group was to share the ugly horrors of war we had all experienced, discuss them in detail and seek ways to help each other rid ourselves of the self inflicted guilt, blame, and even the perverse pride we had developed.

Unfortunately, these group sessions did not work for me; they only served to dig out the ugly memories I thought I had buried deep in my subconscious. It finally reached the point to where PTSD and the alcohol I was using to deaden it, was ruining my life and the future of my growing family.

Then, for some inexplicable reason, I suddenly turned back to my studies of theology and philosophy.

One of the first phrases that guided me towards healing myself was the words of Alexander Graham Bell - of all people - when he said, "When one door closes, another opens, but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one that has opened for us."

This simple phrase told me that I had lost more in war than I fully realized; my friends, my innocence, my pride in my government, and so much more had been lost to me when that door on my life closed. But, I was still looking for those things I had lost and not seeking the door that had opened for me.

As my thoughts repeatedly turned to that beckoning door, the words of S. C. McAuley filtered into my mind when he wrote, "God made you as you are in order to use you as He planned."

Where had my God been all these years while I was suffering?

Suddenly, I realized that I had overlooked the greatest healer of all time and tears started to well up in my eyes because of my stupidity and shame.

They say that faith is seeing a rainbow in each tear.

For me, that day was filled with a host of rainbows, each one guiding me towards the new door that had suddenly opened for me.

"Faith came singing into my room and other guests took flight, grief, anxiety, fear, and gloom sped into the night." (Elizabeth Cheney).

I opened my heart and my mind to God. I bared my soul and poured out the lingering bitterness, the guilt, and other horrors that had been eating away inside me, and with the hope of desperation and genuine prayer, laid them in God’s healing hands.

Since that day, not too long ago, I seldom awaken in terror in the middle of the night. My first thoughts upon waking are to thank God for another day and to ask God to be with me and guide me throughout the day, and let me know when I start to stray. And you know what? It really works!

Henry Ward Beecher wrote, "The first hour of waking is the rudder that guides the whole day."

As a career military person, I developed the habit of talking with my Commander each morning before anyone else.

I still have that habit, but my new Commander is God (The Great Spirit).

I now have a new life. It was not passed on to me from my parents, for the life they gave me will fade away. This new one will last forever, for it comes from God.