It's My Turn to Make Adam Proud

My son went to Iraq to defend our liberty and help free and stabilize a nation. About five months into his deployment two Marines were at my door telling me my son had been killed by an IED. Four years later it would be my turn to “serve”.

I, and three other Utah Gold Star Moms (mothers whose sons died in military service during war time), will go on a “humanitarian and healing mission” to Northern Iraq in late September. We will join other Gold Star Moms from South Carolina through the organization FUTURE. Our sons helped free and stabilize a nation, now its our turn to reach out to families, and specifically the women of Iraq who, like us are mothers, and like us have lost loved ones.

Our mission is to connect with the women, families, and orphans in the region. We will work side by side with Iraqi women and participate in service projects to impact the lives of those our sons gave so much for. But to me, it means so much more.

Three weeks before my son Adam was killed in Iraq, he was injured in an attack that killed four other Marines. While recovering from his injuries we spent many hours on the phone together. In one conversation he said “Mom, there’s a reason I’m alive. I should have died too”. Because my husband Tony and I always had a feeing that there was something different about Adam, and that he would someday accomplish something “big”, I agreed with him and said “yes, God has a special purpose for your life”. In following conversations we always spoke of his “special purpose” and each time I reminded Adam to pray about what God had for him to do, and he agreed. A few short weeks later, Adam was dead.

As a Marine Officer stood in my living room and read the “casualty report” my thoughts went to Adam’s special purpose. In my mind I said “Lord, what about his special purpose?” Despite the devastation I was facing I knew God had a plan and He was working in the situation.

As the years have unfolded I have seen God’s plan at work in my life and in the lives of others. I am not the same person I was four years ago. The heartbreaking news of my son’s death threw me into the arms of God and not away from Him. I now have opportunities to share the love of Christ everywhere I go, when before that was not the case. We’ve seen God move in the lives of other people because of Adam’s life and death. Even in death Adam was reaching people.

Because I pray to stay in God’s will and in the plan He has for my life, I look at opportunities that arise as a chance to walk in God’s plan. Being one of a few Gold Star Moms invited to go to the country where my son died and reach out to the people there, made me seriously think about what God was doing. Could it be in His plan for me to go to Iraq? Could it be part of Adam’s special purpose? What would God’s purpose be for sending me there as opposed to someone else? I don’t know the answers to those questions. However, after months of prayer I decided to walk through the doors God has opened. I feel inadequate to be an ambassador for Him. I’m nothing without Him. But because Christ lives in me, where I go, He goes, and that's good enough for me. Proverbs 16:9 tells us that we can plan our own course, but the Lord determines our steps. I’m looking forward to fulfilling an opportunity that God has placed before me. I’m grateful that He is in charge and that He will direct my steps.

I ask that you would pray for God’s purpose to be fulfilled in this trip, and that you would keep each of the four Gold Star Moms in prayer as we take this journey. I know this trip will open a wellspring of emotions for me as I visit the country where Adam spent the last days of his life. I knew how much Adam wanted to make his parents proud, now it’s my turn to make Adam proud.

Read more about this journey at www.utahmomsiniraq.org
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