When Mommy Goes to War

William Norman Grigg
Sep. 02, 2014

"Please be in prayer for our daughter,” urged a message sent to members of the church I attend with my family here in the Treasure Valley. The young woman “is in the Army deploying to Kuwait this month in support of operations against ISIS. She also warned us she may actually see some action inside Iraq as well. She is also recently divorced with 2 girls, who will be staying with their Dad during her deployment. Would you join us in prayer for reconciliation to God and to each other?”

ISIS, as has been amply documented, is a creation of the same government that is now dispatching that young mother overseas to do battle against that manufactured menace. As Laurence Vance has abundantly demonstrated, the military in which she serves is a far greater immediate threat to her than ISIS could ever be, and her continued affiliation with that entity will not conduce to the marital reconciliation for which I’ve been invited to pray.

“I can’t help but believe that a nation willing to send a mother of two girls into a combat zone is under severe judgment,” I wrote in a reply to the email. Along with the particularized petitions on behalf of this young woman and her family, I concluded, “we should pray for national repentance, and for peace.”