Armies

ARMIES

Tonight, All the stars could fall
Tonight, Will break the chains off us all
Left at one last dance-Nothing here to lose
I wanna light the flame-Fire that’s barely burning in you
Give this dance a chance and if
Tonite I hold you tight-And break down the walls
Kiss your face soft-And open up gates to your soul
Don't lose it all-Wondering when this siege on time ends
And then-What will the armies take away?
Tonite, Life's soldiers could halt
Tonite, Our inner wars will stop
When I take hold your hand-Roses in moonlite entwine
This moment immortal-Cause in us it never dies
And this dance is a tower-Our love will reign safe here forever
These dreams roll on unhindered-And life's soldiers never arrive
To steal them by surprise-When we give our fears up to the fire
When we give it all, all we'll ever need to smile-Is in tonite
Tonite I hold you tight-And break down the walls
Kiss your face soft Open up gates to your soul
Don't lose it all Wondering when this siege on time ends
And then
What will the armies take away?
Tomorrow, Don't you let this go
When our feet hit the ground
God turns back his face-Or time erases our smiles
Tomorrow, Don't you let this go
When roses give way to thorns Life's armies march on our tower
Yeah we may lose the war, But you won't fight this alone
Don't lose it all Wondering when this siege on time ends
And then
What will the armies take away?

“Armies” is about those moments that change everything but you never saw them coming! Each of us have met someone that changed the color of all of our tomorrows, and breathed life into the dreams within us that we thought had died. Sometimes these encounters bloom into everything we hoped for when that seed of hope was planted, and sometimes they never bloom into anything more than a reminder that every dream we had thought extinct may still be living on, waiting to be discovered on a random Tuesday. When your mornings are grey and clouded in hopelessness, remember that “Tonight, all the stars could fall. Tonight, could break the chains from us all”. The Greeks had a word for these moments, Time measured by a clock is “Kronos” but time measured by a Soul is “Kairos”, the “Kodak Moments” that can’t be measured in minutes or in seconds, but only in how much they have changed every day moving forward. Even if life’s soldiers carry away the victory you had for those few short moments, the battle will leave you never the same. It will leave you stronger, it will leave you experienced, and though it may leave you scarred it will also leave you victorious because you have seized onto everything that had been withheld from you despite the enemy trying to keep you from all your heart needs. It may have been a lost battle, but as long as you hold on to that moment you have never lost the war. “Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh. Is anything too hard for me? Jeremiah 32:27
There have been a few moments in my life when “All the Stars Could Fall”, and I believe that there are a few of these that not only live in my past, but also in my future. They keep me moving forward through time, waiting on that random Tuesday when the currents of my life can and will suddenly change direction towards some place better than I had through possible based on the swamp territory I have been wading through all these years. When I was twenty years old I joined the Air Force and moved from a town without a traffic light in my grandfather’s dilapidated house on a dirt road with an orchard in the back and only one neighbor whose chickens like to wander off, to Europe six months later.

After two months of being overseas I was at the base library on a very boring Tuesday, and one of the most incredible people I have ever known walked through the door wearing a silver sapphire necklace. The only words I could put together were to ask her about it and we sat for an hour talking about music and psychology and languages and grandparents. Her grandmother was a Jewess who had hidden that necklace during the Holocaust, and recovered it after her grandfather who was in the U.S. Army liberated the camp her grandmother was kept at, physically picked her up and carried her to a field hospital, and visited her every day until she recovered and he married her. This conversation the beginning of many many more conversations through all hours of the night and multi hundred dollar phone bills. But the “Armies” almost stole it away that day, and did steal it away later.
During the serendipity of the moment we forget to ask each other’s names and to leave a way to contact each other. Her family was on vacation there and staying on base as her father was a retired Navy Seal and her brother was a fighter pilot, and I found out later that they were also Mormons (which wouldn’t have bothered me at the time and I was searching the religions of the world for a Truth I could hold onto, or rather one that would hold onto me when the darkness comes). She had to leave to meet her family for dinner, I left and turned right, she left and turned left, I was led to turn around and go back to the library but kept walking, she had turned around to go find me but I was too far in the distance. Then the next day after thinking all was lost, I saw her eating with her family at the dining facility and wrote my e-mail on a napkin, walked up the table where her dad was giving me “the look” and I said sheepishly “uh, hmm, you dropped this at the library yesterday!” and I bolted like a rocket. Amazingly, she could read my handwriting and I received an e-mail a week later from Arizona, and for a few months, one of the “Best Things They Threw Away” wasn’t someone that was thrown away but was in fact, someone seemingly absolutely adored by the most incredible person he had ever known until that day in his life. The words that others didn’t want to hear were music and the thoughts no one wanted to consider were poetry and for just a few months, I knew what other people feel like for most of their lives, like they are loved regardless of how much or how little they fight to have a “place at the table”.
We had an intense Summer Romance until my father died on the 4th of July Weekend while I was in Paris, then my brother was institutionalized after what seemed to be a failed suicide attempt, and I had to go home to Tennessee for 30 days which used up all of the Military Leave I had planned to use to go see her in Arizona. It also sent me into deep financial problems, military problems as I wasn’t sure when I would be able to return to base and the military couldn’t contact me because I was sleeping on this person’s couch or that person’s couch the whole month I was home with few or little internet or cells phones in 2001 in the backwoods. I spiraled into a deep nearly two year Depression afterwards that was more than her on anyone could handle. She had purchased a plane ticket to move to Germany on December 11th, on December 8th I got the e-mail that she wasn’t coming. But the stars did fall on that early Summer day at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, and they have fell before and they can fall again on another random Tuesday. What we do with all of the other days of the week is the question of our lives, do we waste away wishing they would fall again, or prepare to catch them?

As the Facebook meme says “David was delivering sandwiches when he met Goliath, and Goliath just got in the way”. This was David’s random Tuesday, what and when will yours be? We will find our home I believe, while building His Kingdom. In the ways that seem so mundane and so much less than we dreamed.

"And Jesse said to David his son, “Take for your brothers an ephah of this parched grain, and these ten loaves, and carry them quickly to the camp to your brothers. 18 Also take these ten cheeses to the commander of their thousand. See if your brothers are well, and bring some token from them.” 2 Samuel 17:17

Prayer for those the Armies have come Against

Creator and Sustainer of our Hearts

We come before you asking for a Big Love

We ask for a Love without Fig Leaves like Adam and Eve

We ask for a Love Larger than our Fears

We ask for a Love that keeps the Fire when others have fallen to Ash

We ask for the Walls to come done and never rise Again

We ask for the Hope to wave like a Flag and never Fall

We ask for a Love that grows and gains Ground

A Love that lets us Embrace our Beloved but also our Neighbor and our Enemy

We ask for a Love that brings not only Joy but also Change

We ask for that Banner over us to be Love and to be Raised

“So Jacob worked for Rachel seven years, yet in his eyes it was like a few days,

because of his love for her.” Genesis 29:20 Tree of Life Version

Resource: www.boundless.org Focus on the Family for Singles