One of my old soldiers called and said, “Sir, I have some bad news. We lost one of our soldiers… Specialist Serpa.” Images came flooding back to me: a new kid arriving in our unit right out of high school, a late night conversation in the California desert, the youngest soldier on our deployment, one-on-one time during visits to northern Afghanistan, a soldier returning from deployment and walking out into the night, alone.
It was the saddest sort of family reunions—a sea of dress blue uniforms gathered around the casket of one of our own. But I was not the same person I was before the deployment. In my own grief, by God’s grace, I was able to counsel and care for the soldiers around me with renewed purpose.
This is the power of Christ’s death and resurrection. In these world-altering events, Christ took the sting from death and gave His people the hope of Heaven. Sadly, it is death that often drives us to our knees before these precious truths become real to us. Happily, Christ uses these truths to lift us back up.