Jane Cook - Stories of Faith and Courage from the War in Iraq and Afghanistan

When Cliff Horn, a Seabee, went to Iraq and was assigned to a special task force working with a special forces unit, communication between Caleb and his daddy all but ground to a halt.

The pictures stopped coming. The Web cam no longer brought Cliff back into Caleb’s world. When Cliff was able to call home, it was always late at night when the little boy was fast asleep.

“Kids see how we react and handle things,” said Sara. “I tried to be positive around Caleb about the deployment, but the first month that Cliff was in Iraq was really hard on him.”

In those first thirty days, Sara noticed that Caleb had two major meltdowns. He would cry despondently. “I finally sat down with him and asked if he was upset about his dad being away. He told me he had a bad dream that Daddy had been shot.”

Sara debated about what to do to make her son feel more secure. “The biggest tendency is to say, ‘Daddy is safe, he’s not going to get hurt.’ But you can’t guarantee that. I always said, ‘We know that God is looking out for Daddy, God is watching over Daddy.”

The next time Cliff called, Sara told him about Caleb’s dream and asked if there was any way he could send a picture of himself doing his job that wasn’t combat but construction. So Cliff got a photo approved by the unit of him in a bulldozer and emailed it home. Sara printed it out and had it ready when Caleb came home from school that day. Once he saw that picture, the nightmares stopped.

“We prayed for Cliff every night, but I had to be careful that I didn’t make promises I that I questioned if I could keep,” said Sara. “We’re at war. It’s a great time to emphasize the importance of prayer and trusting God, knowing God is in control no matter what.”

God doesn’t promise his children that life will be without pain, either. But he does tell us he won’t let us go through it without him.

Lord, help me find comfort in your promises.

“God has said, ‘Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.’” (Hebrews 13:5)

On the Fourth of July, 2007, Sara Horn did not feel like celebrating. She sat on the couch alone, curtains drawn, while Caleb played outside. She stared blankly at the turned-off television in front of her, which stared just as blankly back.

I can’t go on, she thought. I am so done. Tired. Spent. This is too hard. I can’t do this by myself.

“It was the lowest point of the deployment for me,” Sara remembered. “Our close friends had disappeared. They didn’t check on me or email Cliff anymore. It was getting hard to do the ministry of Wives of Faith because I got caught up in my own struggles of deployment.”

But on that Independence Day, God told Sara she didn’t need to try to be so independent: You aren’t supposed to do this by yourself, she could almost hear him say. You have been trying to do this by yourself for the last seven months. But you need me and my strength is sufficient for you.

It was a turning point for Sara. “I realized I needed to turn it over to God and let him provide the strength I needed instead of me doing it all myself,” That’s something that I’m trying to share with other wives, also. I think we have it in our heads (because it’s drilled into our culture) that we have to be strong for everybody, but often we can’t be. We just can’t. But God is the strongest when we are the weakest. That’s what we have to remember and focus on we’re not supposed to have it all together.”

The Horns are expecting a second deployment in 2011, and Sara is hoping to use what she has learned so far. “God has taught me so much about leaning on him and finding strength,” she said. “I haven’t learned it all, but if I can just share what I’m learning with someone else. It makes it all worth it. God put us here to share our struggles and help each other.”

As Americans, we pride ourselves on having a can-do attitude, but may we remember that without Christ, we can do nothing.

Lord, don’t let me pride and self-sufficiency prevent me from relying on your strength.

“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” (Philippians 4:13)

New Year’s Eve, 2002. Friends from our church snapped a photo of my husband Scott and me together as we prepared to toast in the New Year. And what a year it would be. God was calling Scott to full-time ministry in the U.S. Army as a chaplain, and we were somewhat excited about the new military adventure that lay ahead. But things were heating up in Iraq and our New Year’s celebration was tainted with a bit of anxiety as we faced impending deployment and many unknowns.

While Scott served in the National Guard, I was accustomed to him being gone one weekend a month, and one month in the year, but the army? I knew nothing about the army. How long would Scott be deployed? Would there be chemical weapons involved? One thing I was certain of was that in three months I was going to be delivering our third child, and my husband was not going to be present.

My mother-in-law kept me occupied on the day of Scott’s departure. On the second day of deployment, one of our church friends brought us lunch and stayed to eat with us. Evidence of God’s provision continued to show through his children: prayers, meals, companionship, childcare, and other gestures of support and encouragement.

In mid-March the invasion into Iraq began, and with parting words of love, encouragement, and prayers for my husband, I wrote “Know that we will be fine… don’t worry about us. You know that so many people are caring for us here.”

I was raised to be independent and help myself, so it was awkward to receive the extra attention. Being on the receiving end was hard to swallow. I did not want to be portrayed as needy or helpless. But when I look back at our first deployment, I fondly recall what it truly feels like to experience Christian community. We were surrounded by people who loved us and cared about us. God used his church and our family to tangibly embrace us during those uncertain months.

Lord, help me be humble enough to allow others to serve me when I need it.

“Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.” (Galatians 6:2)

It was July 28, 2005. The kids and I arrived home from dropping Scott off at the airport to a driveway littered with his residual attempts of packing for Qatar. Two years prior, our family left this civilian community for our new military installation. We had returned home for Scott’s second deployment, counting on the support we expected from the people who knew us best.

I adopted a genuine, “I can do this” attitude about the deployment. But I couldn’t do it alone, and most good intentions to help, from the people we loved fell by the wayside. As I struggled to take care of our young children (ages two, four, and six years old), I felt alone and abandoned. At one point I bordered depression. I tried my best to smile, to fake like all was okay, and to convince myself it was. But it wasn’t.