Christian Living

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Reconciliation
© 2010

by

Stephen A. Peterson


Not a day goes by that I don’t pause to remember a young soldier; I’ll call Mack Harper, an Afghanistan veteran suffering with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and depression. Mack served one tour of duty in Afghanistan when he was in his early twenties in 2003-2004. After listening to the troubled young man, it was another example of the lack of a positive relationship with his biological father. Mack reported having been neglected, beaten and ignored by his father since childhood.

“I have never been able to ever enjoy a single moment of life even as a man,” Mack told me, vacant, troubled eyes fixed on the gray cement floor as I interviewed him following the violation of a general order restricting all personnel from the use of alcohol during a military exercise. For him, having a cold beer, was the only activity he felt he could celebrate.

“What’s there to celebrate? Christmas, Easter, my birthday…they’re all just another day to me.” Another day filled with intrusive thoughts, reliving the years of abuse and neglect by his father. Another day filled with the thoughts of a soldier who blamed his father and himself for his inability to respond positively to authority.

A meeting with a field grade officer, who had many similar difficulties, seemed to change Mack’s outlook towards himself, the Army and life. That encounter set Mack on the road he hadn’t known since he was a child. He began to ask Jesus Christ to help him forgive his father and himself. Eventually, he was able to let go of more than twenty years of bondage much like all of humanity when Jesus Christ came to free humankind from the bondage of sin. Jesus became a human lived as a human did, but died unlike that of any human ever…to reconcile humankind to God (Himself). It is a great gift to be able to watch Mark celebrate life gain free of anger.

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