(5-8 minutes, moderate set-up)
Learners will hear some of what military spouses endure when their soldiers are not with them.
For more information on Jennifer’s letter, go to http://www.stripes.com/news/jennifer-s-letter-1.98638.
Share the following: America has had active military personnel serving around the world for years. With long, exhausting hours of training while at home and revolving deployments overseas, military spouses have had to learn how to survive without their spouses. When her husband left for a year’s tour in Afghanistan, Jennifer Chaloux gave him a three-page letter to explain all she was feeling.
She described the difficulty in saying goodbye and knowing what all was at risk. And she wrote about her life without him: “Your home is just a house now. Everyday revolves around thinking about him, worrying and watching the clock to calculate what time it is half way around the world. You try to stay busy, but the stress doesn’t go away. It’s a roller coaster ride, and life won’t let you get off.”
Jennifer and other military wives depend upon phones calls and Internet conversations to stay in touch, to hear about what their spouses are experiencing, and to know that they are safe, at least for one more day.
Point out that we’ve all experienced the pain of not being with someone, although maybe not to the extreme that military spouses do. Say: When you think about the pain of being separated from the one you love, it becomes easier to understand why God, because of His great love for us, would send His Son to be “God with us.”