Healing the effects of War

What can we do to support our troops coming home from the war in Iraq? According to an article in the Los Angeles Times Friday May 16, 2006 said “A Journal of the American Medical Assn. study published in March found that more than a third of troops who served in Iraq sought help for mental problems within a year of returning home” These brave young men and women deserve a better fate after risking their life to defend the freedoms of others.

As a Christian Scientist I cannot sit back and accept this verdict about these brave soldiers. I know that God is love and is always caring for each and every child. The evils of war are not from God and they cannot leave permanent damage to man. War is a lie. God never made it and man cannot suffer from it. The scars of war cannot repeat themselves. Since God is Mind man reflects that Mind. Evil has no power. It cannot attach itself to man.

The Bible tells us “As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you; and ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem.”(Isa. 66:13) Just like God comforted His people years ago He is continuing to comfort and heal His children now. Right this very minute love is with these solders. It is with them when they are awake and when they sleep. Man cannot be bullied by the nightmares of the past. Since they never happened to God they can never happen to His idea man.

When I came back from Vietnam I had many issues to be healed. Although I did not see hand to hand combat I still was very distressed over my experience there. I felt I was a victim of my circumstances. A dear friend of my family which I have always claimed as my adopted aunt gave me much comfort in my time of need. For probably a week or more she spent hours with me right into the night affirming my relationship with God. She praised me for serving my country. She told me I could not suffer for doing right. God is love and God protected me while I was there. Evil no matter what it calls itself is a liar and the father of it. Since God is love then love is more powerful than hate. I was the child of God before I went to Vietnam and I was still the child of God. This experience was like a bad nightmare and I could awake out of it. I was at one with God and not at one with that nightmare. Since I was at one with God this meant that I was at one with His thoughts such as peace, calmness, happiness, and holiness. During that week, I began to focus my thoughts on the power of God’s love rather than the episodes of my Vietnam experience. This recognition of the power of God’s love brought healing.

Over the years I have learned what Mrs. Eddy says of the past. “It is well to know, dear reader, that our material, mortal history is but the record of dreams, not of man's real existence, and the dream has no place in the Science of being. (Ret. 21:13-15)

Our dear ones coming back from the war can find that their experience as well was a dream and not a reality. They can claim their oneness with God and deny the existence of any other power and any other experience. God is the only power the only presence and the only reality. Man is loved. He has always been loved and always will be loved.
We are not alone fighting with our nightmares of the past. God is with us raising our thought above the nightmare into the ever present oneness with Him. Right now we have the ability to elevate our thinking above the nightmare because we know the nightmare was and always will be a lie about God’s creation. In God’s creation all is in harmony and all is peace. We have a right to claim this peace for ourselves or for our loved ones right this very minute.

Welcome home dear heroes. Welcome home not to the nightmares of the past but of the calmness of the present. You are the beloved of the Lord and don’t you forget it. Your consciousness is filled only with the thoughts from God because that is all that really exists in God’s kingdom where you have always reigned. “Pilgrim on earth, thy home is heaven; stranger, thou art the guest of God.”(Science and Health with Key to the scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy p.254:31-32)