Amen 1

*Author's note: This story is based on my own very real personal experiences. The last woman I slept with before I married my now ex-wife was not only married herself but devoutly religious and a pastor's daughter. She was roughly my age at the time, and wrestling with the same doubts as the older, female pastor's wife in this fictional story.

I also included something else very real and very personal; the way my best friend was died in Afghanistan in 2008. I wasn't with him when it happened, but I spoke to three eyewitnesses who all told me the very same thing. It is very graphic so please be forewarned.

This isn't a 'religion' story—pro or con. It is a human story; a story of how our needs often conflict and where even deeply-held religious conviction is not always a shield against that conflict. All of us are human beings with the same basic wants, needs, and desires. Sometimes, those values many consider 'higher' lose out to some other need or desire that rises above them to the point that it demands our undivided attention. Then, when the circumstances are right, when a confluence of events creates the perfect storm, it can all come crashing down—or be rebuilt in some new, hopefully better, way.

"Oh, how the mighty have fallen."

******

October, 2009: Camp Lejeune, North Carolina

"HEM is the abbreviation we use for humor, exercise, and music, and it's effective for a large percentage of service members who are struggling with post-traumatic stress. If you're a person of faith, prayer can also be helpful."

"Yeah, I don't think prayer would work for me. Not after watching my best friend burn to death in a Humvee after an IED blew up trapping him inside."

She'd heard the story from him before, but didn't interrupt as he explained how the metal seat pan underneath him deformed in the blast and wrapped around his friend's lower body hopelessly pinning his fellow Marine and best friend inside. He and two other Marines had tried to pull him out before the flames got too bad, but they couldn't even budge him.

Brian, or Sergeant Jacobs to his fellow Marines, watched and heard his closest friend screaming for help as the fire began burning viciously. Reaching in again at that point was a death sentence yet he went to do just that when his other two comrades grabbed him and wrestled him to the ground.

They convinced him they had no choice but to retreat several hundred yards from the burning vehicle knowing it would soon explode along with the AT-4 anti-tank round sitting directly behind his friend along with several boxes of M-16 ammunition in the empty seat to his right as well as the grenades attached to the gear he was wearing.

Sergeant Jacobs had also killed an Iraqi man with his K-bar, the name Marines gave to any big knife they carried although there was an actual K-bar a few men carried. Until the death of his friend, that event had haunted him more than anything else in his life. He still saw the man's eyes nearly popping out of their sockets once he got the upper hand and had him pinned to the floor. He'd driven the K-bar straight into the man's skull which was just inches from his own face in this very literal struggle of life and death.

Brian Jacobs was a kind, calm, caring young man who's only previous encounter with aggression had been on the football field in high school before enlisting in the Marine Corps. In the nearly four years he'd served on active duty, he'd spent almost two of them in Iraq.

He'd been back for two months from this last tour when his company commander had ordered him go to counseling after Jacobs had become increasingly withdrawn. Suicide was a constant threat among those who'd witnessed the horrors of war, and leaders at all levels were constantly on the lookout for warning signs. Jacobs wasn't sure whether talking about all this was helping or making things worse, but he was willing to try pretty much anything to quiet the voices in his head.

"Okay, so prayer isn't an option for you. That's fine. Meditation can be just as effective, and I'll work with you on some techniques during your final visit next week. In the meantime, try and make HEM as big a part of your life as you can. I know you run and workout, so please keep doing both. I would recommend making humor and music a much bigger part of your life. Listen to comedy routines, stick with lighthearted programs like the Daily Show and avoid hard news. Try to laugh even when you don't feel like laughing. I know you listen to music, but maybe try and expand your horizons a little. Classical music can be particularly effective. Please don't laugh, but even someone like yourself might benefit from taking either singing or piano lessons. Any instrument is fine, it's just that there are piano teachers everywhere making that a little easier. Lastly, try and find something you like that forces you to focus all of your attention on it. Mathematics comes to mind if you're into academics. Woodworking is another great option. Automotive repair. Stuff that lets you break this mental loop and gets you 'out of your head' as it were."

Jacobs smiled a wry smile. "Yeah, I can just see little old me opening my mouth wide like a bird so I can sing. Talk about looking stupid."

His therapist never laughed at her patients, but she did try and laugh with them. "That does make for a very funny picture," she said as she imagined this tall, strong, very well-built, and very nice-looking young man stretching his mouth wide open as a demanding singing coach keeps saying, 'Wider! Like a bird! Wider!'"

"Sitting in front of a piano is almost as funny," he said. He sat still for a moment then said, "Then again, that might not be the worst idea I've ever heard."

His therapist smiled and said, "Well, thank you, Sgt. Jacobs. That's high praise indeed! I think."

She reminded him of their last appointment the following week, his next-to-last full week on active duty, and he promised to be there. He'd told her he was getting out in another 12 days and going back to his hometown just outside of Seattle, Washington. He wasn't sure yet, but he was thinking about going to college and in that case, taking some math classes would be a requirement.

Perhaps forcing himself to think about other things was the key. All he knew for now was that as long as he was surrounded by other men in uniform all day, every day reminding him of the past, he'd never break this vicious cycle. And if he didn't break it soon, it might just break him.

Jacobs attended that final session which was largely a review of everything they'd previously covered along with how to meditate effectively. It was a lot more difficult than it seemed, but he felt like it might help a little were he ever able to actually 'get in the zone.' It didn't happen that first day, but he had a pretty good idea of how to go about trying to get there, and he promised himself he'd put all of her advice to work once he got home.

He'd initially stay with parents who couldn't wait to have him back under their roof even though he'd managed to put away nearly $25,000 over those four years, most of it due to being in combat zones where he couldn't spend any money. He'd also saved money by driving a used car his dad gave to him the first time he came home on leave after boot camp at Parris Island, South Carolina. He'd only put about 15,000 miles on it in the last four years including having driven it all the way to Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, and back home to Seattle.

He didn't get his haircut that last week, another first since he'd enlisted. Unlike other services, Marines had to have a tightly tapered haircut as the minimum standard and that meant a weekly trip to the barbershop. Most wore high and tights—at least in grunt (infantry) units—but Jacobs never had. Many guys cut each other's hair to save a few bucks as it was pretty hard to botch a high and tight. He wasn't sure how long he'd let it grow out, but he had no plans to cut it for at least a couple of months.

He listened to music for nearly four solid days on the drive across the country as he went from state to state through the heartland, across the Rocky Mountains, then finally into the Pacific Northwest. It was the middle of September and the weather had been clear and cold much of the way with gray skies and light rain in others. He'd avoided the snow that would soon be falling, and that was just fine with him.

It was a little after noon on that fourth day when he finally made it to the summit of Chinook Pass in the Cascade Mountains which divided the state of Washington roughly in half, and that meant he was less than 50 miles from home.

Home. That word sounded so good and yet it seemed like such a different concept than it had to him just four years ago when he'd left to serve his country and be eligible for the GI Bill so he could go to school. Even the word 'school' seemed very different to him now. Then again, pretty much everything in his world was different than it used to be, and he knew that on some level things would never be quite the same.

What he needed was time. Time to heal. Time to reflect without ruminating. And maybe even time to love. Jacobs knew he was a decent-looking guy, but being an infantryman in the U.S. Marine Corps didn't give a guy too many opportunities to meet the kind of girl Jacobs was interested in meeting. He'd had girlfriends in high school; one of them had ever been serious. In fact, when she broke up with him unexpectedly after having met someone else while she was away at college was a prime reason he'd left his home town.

She was three years older than him, and Jacobs had fallen hard for her. She was not only older but beautiful both inside and out. She'd been his first love and...his first. In spite of having lost contact with her, he thought of her often, especially during those months in Iraq. Anytime he closed his eyes, he thought of her. Her face, her smile, her kiss, her perfume, her body, and the way she'd given it to him completely so many times.

Those memories had been the only thing that kept him from going insane when every ride in a vehicle meant potential injury or death. There was a living, thinking enemy who wanted to kill him every time his unit went 'outside the wire' and she went with him every time it did. She was always there; always with him, sustaining him and giving him hope there was another woman like her out there somewhere—should he live long enough to find her, that is.

But before he could love again he needed to get himself mentally healthy so that when he finally found her, he could love her the way he hoped she would love him back. Marriage and eventually a family were priorities in his life, but getting his head on straight first was essential.

Just over an hour later, he was pulling into his parents' driveway. He turned off the car and just sat there for a few seconds taking it all in. Finally he said quietly out loud, "It's over."

He got out, grabbed his seabag (duffle bag in the Army), gym bag, and one suitcase and went inside to a lot of hugs and tears and, "Thank God you're home!" comments.

*****

Early January, 2010: In a church near Seattle, Washington

"Sister Tolson, this is very unusual. Your husband is the pastor of my sister church and we have become very close friends over the years. Are you sure I'm the right person to counsel you on something so personal?"

"I don't know who else to talk to, Pastor," she told him. "I've tried talking to my husband many, many times, but it hasn't helped. I've prayed and prayed and prayed, but nothing's changed. I'm truly at wits end, and I don't know where else to turn."

"All right, in that case, I'll agree to counsel you. Why don't we begin with a word of prayer?"

"Amen," she said when he finished his prayer in the name of Jesus.

"So, let's get started, sister."

For the next ten minutes she poured her heart out through many tears as she explained how lonely she felt all of the time. Her husband was pastor of a very large church in the Seattle area which had grown from five people to almost 5,000 over the last 15 years, the same amount of time they'd been married.

He'd gone from being busy-but-attentive to being so busy he gradually began neglecting her. They'd spent so much time together in those early years, and it had been so very tender, loving, and romantic. She was his best friend and his lover and happy beyond belief. She'd never been with another man before him in spite of the constant pressure put on her during both high school and college, and she was thrilled to offer him her virginity on their wedding night.

Kinley (nee Salyers) Tolson had been a very pretty girl and an even more beautiful woman. Even now, she was still a very attractive lady with long, blonde hair, a pretty face, and an amazing figure she worked very hard to maintain. And yet for all her efforts, her husband, Andrew, now paid her virtually no attention physically and making matters worse, he was now also emotionally unavailable.

He worked 12-14 hours a day, seven days a week. He was either preparing a sermon or counseling with parishioners or trying to increase church membership or expand their bus ministry. There was a new addition to their main church building in the works, too, and that took up even more of his time. Time was the one thing Kinley needed. Well, time and a little bit of his attention.

It wasn't just lovemaking. It was...everything. They no longer sat together on the couch holding hands or kissing. They rarely even hugged and almost never kissed beyond the briefest of pecks when he left the house each morning around 7:30. Gone were the sweet, often-romantic phone calls. There were no texts with a hint of intimacy to come. Flowers never came home with him for her anymore. There weren't even any of the stimulating intellectual discussions about the things they both enjoyed.

In essence, they lived separate lives under the same roof. Perhaps most troubling of all was the way her faith had been challenged. She'd always been a true believer—even when her parents had survived for several hours after a terrible car accident. She just knew her prayers mattered even though they didn't seem to get answered, and she'd prayed every single day—and sometimes many times a day—since. And for many, many months she'd prayed, often fervently, for God to give her back her husband.

She knew things changed and accepted that as part of life. She knew he was busy doing the Lord's work, and she knew things couldn't be like they'd been 15 years ago or even five years for that matter. But couldn't the God of the Universe touch her husband's heart to maybe give her 15 minutes of his time each day? Or every other day? She didn't need to have him all to herself all the time. She just needed to have him once in a while.

Yes, she missed making love. A lot. But it was everything else right down to those smiles meant only for her or the little sticky notes he'd leave with some romantic comment. Now there was nothing. Nothing but the big, new home they'd moved into once the church's membership grew large enough to justify a very hefty salary, money he more than earned spending 70-80 hours a week 'laboring for the Lord.'

They couldn't have children, and even though that had initially been devastating to learn, it hadn't shaken her faith in God or her husband. There had to be a reason he had so few 'swimmers', a reason known only to God. But that, plus the years of neglect and unanswered prayers were taking their toll.

"Sister Tolson, we can't always know the mind of the Lord. It may be He's using this to prepare you for some greater work or calling. You know full well His ways are higher than our ways. Whatever may be going on or why, I can only assure you that it's a part of His plan. Trust in the Lord and lean not unto your own understanding," he told her. "Doing so can bring nothing but even greater pain and spiritual ruin. Never forget that. Now let's go ahead and pray again before we end our time together."

"Amen," she said again only this time it felt hollow. She couldn't explain it, it was just...different. For the first time in her life, she wondered if there was even anyone 'up there' listening rather than this being some part of a bigger plan that was supposed to be God's will for her life. Maybe it was nothing more than a husband who didn't see her as a priority. Then again, what if she really was completely on her own and no amount of prayer was going to change a thing because no 'Changer' existed?

The thought was so disturbing and so unsettling, she pushed it out of her mind and vowed not to think about it again. Doing so was 'giving place to the devil' and the pastor had been right. Failing to trust the Lord could only bring even greater sorrow and pain. And yet if that were true, why did she feel like she was so sad and so alone that she often wondered whether life was even worth living? Perhaps it might be best to 'move on' knowing she would be in heaven where the Lord who would 'wipe away all tears from her eyes.' If something didn't change soon, she wasn't sure how much more of this she could take.

For now, at least, she had her music and her students. Teaching piano was the one and only bright spot in her life and the one thing that kept her going each day, and tomorrow she had a new student; one she hadn't met but had only spoken to by phone.

He was 22 and told her he'd recently left the military. Her heart had gone out to him when he told her why he was wanting to take lessons. No, he hadn't shared any of the specifics of the things he'd seen and done. He only told her he thought it might be a good way to help him forget some things he'd experienced during his two tours in Iraq.

She and her husband both strongly supported the military and especially the people serving in it, and yet she'd never had anyone like him take piano lessons from her before. She'd offered to teach him for free but he'd refused. She suggested a healthy military discount, and again, he let her know he could afford to pay. His voice had been deep and rich, but what touched her the most was the way he spoke. He was polite, dignified, thoughtful, mature, and caring. For those reasons she found herself actually looking forward to meeting him.

As always, she was up, dressed, and ready for the day to make his coffee and breakfast. He put his hand on her shoulder, smiled, then sat down to the three-egg-white omelet she'd made for him. He didn't tell her it looked great or even thank her for it. He just made kept making notes on whatever he was writing on as he ate in silence while she sat across from him sipping her second cup of coffee.

He finished his last bite, stood up without so much as looking at her, went and brushed his teeth, then came back to give her that quick peck.

"Have a good day, sweetheart," she said smiling as she always did.

"You, too," he said. "Oh, is that Marine of yours coming over for piano lessons today?"

"Yes. He'll be here around 10," she told him.

"Great! Don't forget to invite him to church." And with that he was gone.

She was determined not to cry, but this had been building up inside of her for so long, it came pouring out with a vengeance. Within seconds, her makeup was a mess. She sat back down and let it come. And it kept coming and coming and still it kept right on coming.

She didn't expect a romantic vacation in Paris or Rome. She didn't even need a romantic dinner with her husband at some nice restaurant. But was it too much to get a simple 'thank you' or an actual, heartfelt hug? Was one real kiss a day that much out of the question? Sadly, the answers all seemed to end in 'yes.'

Kinley had examined her life a thousand times to see if there was anything she'd done wrong that may have caused this or contributed to it. Had she been neglectful? Had she failed as a homemaker, a lover, or even as a friend? As objectively as humanly possible she knew the answers to those questions were all 'no.' There was nothing more she could have done. She exercised regularly and took very good care of her body. She always did her hair and makeup and dressed nicely for her husband. She'd asked, she'd suggested, she'd hinted, she'd even begged for his attention. She'd even tried enticing him with sexy lingerie numerous times, all to no avail.