My Soldier and Answered Prayers

My heart has been aching and full as I think about Brock. I worry so much about him and the decisions he is making. I am hoping that he is learning along his journey and hopefully the consequences won't be too life altering and that the lessons learned with be worth something. It is hard to see your children fly from the nest. Wyatt wrote a beautiful analogy about teaching children to fly and he hit the nail right on the head. We have shown our children and told them how to flap their wings. They have seen us fall from the nest ourselves and hopefully learned from that. Now we hold each other and watch as each one jumps off the edge of the nest and all we can do is pray and yell words of encouragement but the time for teaching is over.

As Brock is away from us, both Wyatt and I are just praying and worrying. My heart has been heavy and full at the same time. I have been close to tears daily. There is something I need to do for him, but what? I pray, but still there is something else, I don't know what...until last night. I was cleaning off my desk and I ran across some pictures of Brock that I had out. I looked through them and my heart was in that "place" again, somewhere between aching and full. I rifled through a few more papers and I came across a letter dated May 8, 2007, that we received when he first went to boot camp. It was from church headquarters. I had read it a year before and I was grateful for the contents but was prompted to open it and read it again. I started to sob as I got to the last paragraph,

"We have a deep and abiding interest in Brock's welfare and want to ensure the blessings of Church membership are available wherever he is stationed. As military members move around, occasionally they are unable to find out where and when the Church meetings are held. Our Military Relations Division can assist them. Please don't hesitate to contact the Military Relations Division (at this e-mail address). We know that the Lord is mindful of Brock and the challenges he will face as he valiantly serves in the military."

There was my answer. I was to contact the Military Relations Division. I immediately sat down and wiped the tears from my eyes and poured out my heart to them to help my son find someone, anyone, home teachers, elder's quorum president, bishop, and to help them find him. When I related the experience to Wyatt, he too started to cry and told me that he has been prompted several times in the last week to contact someone from the church in Alaska. We both knew that it was an answer to prayers.