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Welcome to this day-before Veterans Day edition of The Babbling Brook. We would like to share a story with you that comes to us from Connie McNeal, our assisted living activities director at Willow Brook Christian Village.
In the weeks leading up to Election Day 2022, when paperwork for absentee ballots needed to be distributed and collected, Connie spoke with a 99-year-old Village resident, Phil, who mentioned that he had only missed one presidential election in his life. When Connie asked for more of the story, Phil shared that he was unable to vote in the presidential election of 1944 because his voter paperwork had been destroyed. He was serving overseas during World War II. He had filled out his voter paperwork to be sent stateside, but during the night, a thunderstorm swept through and drenched his foxhole and everything in it, including his paperwork. The paperwork washed away, and his vote never made it to the ballot box
Phil was serving at Normandy Beach.
It was the only election he ever missed.
Phil died this passed August.
In our cities, towns, churches, and neighborhoods, we have elders with stories like this. Time is growing shorter each day for our World War II veterans, many of whom kept silent about their service experience for much of their lives—another reason why Phil’s story is so special.
At Willow Brook, we believe in honoring our veterans every day—not just Veterans Day—by providing them with outstanding care and serving them with compassion and love. This is the Willow Brook Way. We also honor these men and women by getting curious about their lives and their stories, the experiences they have had, and the memories they hold in their hearts. We must strive to share these stories and these precious remembrances. In doing so, not only do the stories live on, but the person who lived the story becomes alive to us in a new way.
To our Willow Brook veterans: it is an honor to serve you. And to veterans everywhere, as a small token of our thanks, we offer you this prayer, written with love, to honor you and all you have experienced.
A Prayer for Veterans
By Cathy Courtice
Holy God,
We come before you today, privileged and blessed, to recognize and honor the people who have served in our armed forces. Whether in times of war, conflict, or peace, they have sacrificed their time, their well-laid plans, their comfort, their health, and even their lives for the peace and safety of not only their families, friends, and communities, but for the peace and safety of people they have never known in places they have never been. May your blessings reign down upon them.
We also pray for the men and women who are currently serving, especially in war-torn places like Israel, Gaza, the West Bank, Ukraine, Syria, Niger, and so many others. Let them know they are not alone. Comfort their loved ones and let your open arms be a refuge for the fear, the doubt, and the hurt.
We pray, God, for every veteran of our military to feel truly seen, honored, and appreciated by their fellow citizens. May each of the veterans entrusted to us at Willow Brook, and throughout our country, feel the deep and enduring gratitude of our nation and its people.
We know, Lord, that many veterans still carry their service in their bodies and in their souls. So often, only you know the memories that still live within them and the heaviness on their hearts. God of renewal, we pray you will bring healing to those veterans who still hurt, and grant patience and wisdom to those of us around them who cannot understand, but who walk alongside them in their journey.
Almighty God, you know every veteran by name. You know their deeds, their hard work, and their perseverance. You know their needs, both material and spiritual. May your grace, your understanding, and your unconditional love hold and surround these children of God, now, and forever.
We ask these things in Christ’s name. Amen.