When you don't know what to say...

Technology has really changed out lives, especially in the last 100 years or so. We have cell phones attached to our hips almost 24 hours a day, the internet to keep in touch with people all around the globe, video chats and picture messages... the list could go on and on.

Problem is, I'm not sure it's really a good thing. My grandmother tells me stories about when her brother went off to war. He was a hero in his time, he saved many of his fellow soldiers lives after being wounded himself. It's a great story but I'm not going to tell it. She says she remembers the heartbreak her mother suffered when Coy left. In those days, they didn't leave and come back here and there. They left and wrote letters and if something happened to where they couldn't write a letter here and there, they just didn't hear from them at all.

She says they received several letters and one telegram while he was away. The telegram was a simple message : Coy had been severely wounded. That was it. There were no updates on his condition, no more letters. One day, to the joy of those around him, he finally came home.

That was how war was back then. You sent your son, brother, husband off and just prayed that they returned. Now we have the internet to keep in touch, crazy long-distant phone calls and video chats. But when you're speaking to a loved one who is faced with the issue of war, what do you say?

I run into this problem almost daily. I'm blessed to have the opportunity to talk to my brother while he is on the front line in Afghanistan. But the things he tells me, the concerns and the worries he shares; I just don't have a response for. Every day I have to pray that God give me a mouth full of words that he needs to hear because I myself, just can not find them.

See my brother has a special heart. He has a heart of compassion and love and it's hard for him to turn that 'off'. Enemy or not. So this is harder for him than some. It's hard for him to grasp and it's even harder for him to do. I do my best to understand but I know I can't fully understand and I do my best to love him from afar, but even the deepest love is different at a distance.

I just pray that I can be the person he needs for me to be. I pray that he comes home alive and well and that he has a long life ahead of him yet. He's been there a month. An entire month. His first mission was canceled (Praise God!) and when it was rescheduled, they sent someone else out in his place. So far he has been extremely blessed. They have had contact several times with the enemy, the man that took his place on the last mission had the antenna on his back shot off...but he still came back safely. There was one incident with a roadside bomb...but again, every one came back safely. So I pray that things will continue this way. He said the next mission will be within the next couple of weeks. Still, I must praise God for all the good that has come so far.