Returning to war requires a prayer
Family and friends,
After a delightful two weeks leave in Cache Valley, I am on the road back to Iraq. Time is too quick while home and too slow while away. I leave with you some feelings of my soul addressed to the one who rules on high. Chris
God-
I am grateful for the time you’ve given me to come home from a distant, war-torn land. For two weeks I met family and friends, whose love distance cannot diminish and whose prayers are carried and answered on angel’s wings. I am grateful for a chance to hike among autumn’s glowing canopy and watch graceful falling snow paint winter’s white canvas. Please grant these two weeks of home will buoy me during stormy times away.
I now return to a foreign land where death and chaos reign. Please bring hope and life from the ashes wet with blood. Bless those left behind, embrace them in your love. Bless the soldiers to be true and faithful to country’s call. Please take to your celestial mansions those whose lives were cut short on duty’s path and be with those who mourn their loss. Give me strength to meet the challenge of the day and keep me safe from angry lead shouted from the rifle’s mouth or exploding bomb. But more important keep me safe from Satan’s grasp. Let me shine your light and love to all.
If it be your will, bring me home again to my family’s table. Whether in the sunshine of life or in the shadows of death, be with me and lead me back to you. Amen
Christopher Keeley is a graduate student at USU and was working as a staff assistant in Extension Conference Services when he was called to active duty. He is from Hyrum, Utah, and is a member of the Utah National Guard specializing in counterintelligence and is a Korean linguist.