.....Joe began automatically filling out the areas of the form
asking for his basic information. The purpose of the form, he saw, was
ascertaining the reason for his promotion. The first section merely wanted his
full name, date of birth, current address, names of parents, stuff like that.
Joe filled out his mother's name, Rachel Jamison. He glanced over to the blank
labeled, "Name of Father," but luckily his eye caught a small box in
the corner labeled "Single Parent." Gratefully, Joe checked the box.
Not that he did not have a father; Joe knew there must have
been one, but he was not a part of his son's life at all. Rachel Alban had led
an idyllic singlehood, but her aim and highest goal had always been to marry
the perfect man and have plenty of children. She knew she had found the one
when she met the man who had been Joseph's father, Captain Jamison, a soldier
in the Marines. They, of course, had Joseph, but then Rachel's dreams of being
the model Army wife were shattered when she became an Army widow. Rachel felt
somehow deceived, somehow sold short of her goal. She wanted more than just the
one son; especially when little Joe began exhibiting behaviors that irritated
her: he was too quiet, he read too much, he talked too smart for someone his
age, and many others as he grew. Rachel began to see that if she wanted the
family of her dreams, she needed to be searching for the right man with which
to make that family.
Thus began a steady stream of men in and out of Joe's life.
All of them were father material to the mother; none of them were
father-figures in any way to the son. Inevitably, the search for the perfect
husband (or at least a perfect boyfriend) caused the death of Rachel Jamison,
when her son was only fifteen years old. Upon her death, however, Joe discovered
that, far from leaving him destitute, his mother had at least set aside enough
money to pay for one year's tuition at the college of his choice. Joe,
following a hint from his mother that his father had been a soldier, opted for
West Point.
Once there, however, Joseph became acutely and painfully
aware of just how unique and specially gifted he was.
Living at home and going to public school, Joseph had
endured the surprised stares of teachers as he turned in excellent homework
assignments every time, and in grade school none of the others really cared
much about how fast the others got their work done, or how grades compared,
anyway. Within his home his mom all but ignored him as long as his grades were
good, so Joseph continued functioning and reasoning as he always did. Entering
high school at fourteen, however, Joseph quickly received his first inkling
that something set him apart from the other kids his age.
First, there was his affinity for foreign languages. There
was a mandatory second language program at his grade school, and parents could
choose from three languages taught at the school: Spanish, German, and French.
Unbeknownst to Rachel, the three forms her son brought home at the beginning of
the school year for her to sign (which she did, very impatiently and
unconcernedly) were not for the same class; Joseph got her to sign him up for
all three classes, and for the next several years, Joseph handled three
beginning language classes with uncanny ease. By the time he entered
high-school, Joseph was nearly fluent in at least those three languages. The
foreign language program in high school offered Chinese in addition to the
standard three, so Joseph eagerly tackled that language for the year.
He was also an exceptionally well-mannered young boy, conscientiously
picking up on social cues even at a very young age. Such a skill made him
popular in elementary school, as the other kids appreciated the way he was
always nice to them and always seemed to know the right things to say and do,
but his keen mannerliness all but alienated him from the other high school
kids. They called him "dork" and "nerd" and
"show-off" and "prissy" and --most painful of all--
"spacey." He never gave an incorrect answer to any question, but his
constantly pensive demeanor gave others the impression that perhaps Joe Jamison
did not always reside on planet Earth. Joe, finding himself again rejected,
first by his mother and now by his peers, grew discouraged. He began
withdrawing from everyone in his life, and when his mother died a year after he
began high school, he knew he would rather join the ROTC in preparation to
enter West Point Academy than face another year at high school. Perhaps in the
military setting Joe could find at least a few people with whom he could
intellectually relate, and if not, well, surely they would take him more
seriously there than in high school.
It only took two months for Joe to discover how wrong he
was. The ROTC, from his perspective, was exactly like high school, but involved
more rules and restrictions and the instructors demanded more of the cadets
than the high school teachers their students. The name-calling persisted, only
instead of “spacey” Joseph was branded the more refined name of “space cadet.”
By the time he entered West Point, Joseph felt completely alone in the world,
and lost in his own mental capacity.
In the present, Joe paused in his reminiscing to thank God
he had found Him in that uncertain time.
With all the pressure and instability Joseph felt, he knew
it would have been too easy to resist all forms of social interaction in spite
of his aptitude, and to turn to countless other methods and substances even the
others of his unit began trying and using to cope with the emptiness he felt in
his soul. Joseph recalled the exact date, April 5, 20--, when he happened upon
a tract someone had just discarded in front of him.
"LOST?"
It read.
Joseph picked up the tract, reading the questions that
resonated with the ones even now spinning in his head.
"Have you ever wondered why you are here? Is it
enough to know, like most will tell you, that you have an ambiguous, indefinite
purpose in the Circle of Life? Did you ever think it could be possible to have
a specific reason WHY you are THE WAY YOU ARE? Would you like to be directed by
Somebody willing to SHOW you the right way to live, rather than just TELLING
you? Chaplain Lucas Grace can help you! Come to Chapel on Easter Sunday to hear
the Greatest News Ever Told!"
By the time he finished the tract, Joe was so excited about
the prospect of finding answers to his questions he folded the tract, slipped
it into his shirt pocket and continued to his next class with a lighter step.
It occurred to the young cadet that he had seen several cadets on campus
handing out flyers and tracts just like this one, but he had always passed them
by assuming they were just hawking another religion or life-change philosophy,
one for which a busy student already too pensive for his own good would not
need. He probably would not have accepted from them the flyer he now carried in
his pocket, yet he noted with irony that the cadet that did accept the paper
originally, ultimately rejected its message.
Joseph attended the service, and he was so enraptured by
the message the Chaplain shared that he stayed behind after everyone else left
to speak with Chaplain Grace alone.
Lucas Grace had served as the Chaplain at West Point for
twenty-three years, and in spite of that many sermons, the number of cadets
taking the opportunity to dedicate their lives to Christ decreased as the years
progressed. Chaplain Grace often had to combat the discouraging thought that
once the cadets stopped coming forward, he would stop preaching; he fought it
with the reassurance that this chapel, this time is where God had him, to
preach the Gospel and make disciples, not just to win converts. Every time he
was tempted to quit, Lucas would consider whether the next year, after he was
gone, a cadet would come looking for God, and Lucas would have missed the
opportunity. That's what he had asked himself on Christmas, and now on Easter,
he received his answer in the form of the wide-eyed, shy, lonely new cadet
named Joseph.
Joseph was looking for answers, and he was looking for a
purpose. Chaplain Grace showed him the message of the Bible, and Joseph knew
that this was the answer and the directive he was looking for. He threw himself
into believing and founding his life on the principles of the Bible as ardently
as he pursued his studies, if not even more so. If ever again he felt the old
disorientation or confusion coming on, Joseph would immediately turn to prayer
and the Word of God. He met with Chaplain Grace multiple times during the week,
and the older man became the father-figure and mentor Joseph never had but
always sought.
Chaplain Grace, far from thinking Joseph
"spacey," encouraged the young man to view his proficiency in
languages and his keen perceptiveness as gifts instead of hindrances. He
inspired the young cadet to choose the field he felt God calling him to, and so
Joseph chose two focuses he felt utilized and amplified the skills he already
had, in a wider, more applicable manner: a Master's degree in World Cultures
and Religions, with an undergraduate in World Languages.
A few years later, Joseph,
a junior officer, received a freshman roommate, Benjamin Samson. Joseph
immediately brought him to Chapel, and in very short order, Benjamin also
joined the small "Bible mentor sessions," as Joseph called them.
Joseph recognized the hand of God in first leading Joseph to Himself, then
bringing to him a young man open to the Gospel for a roommate, so every evening
and morning, Joseph and Benjamin spent an hour in reading the Bible and in
prayer. Joseph felt that these quality times made anything he faced during the
days and weeks bearable, even the unexpected promotion to lieutenant and
subsequent deployment to Florida that had cropped up in the space of two
months. One minute Joseph had been attending a lecture on "The Spiritual
Motivations of a Believer in A Religion Without A Centralized Deistic
System," and the next he was riding in the familiar green jeep to the
airfield for a flight to Tampa with a brand-new silver bar on his uniform and a
letter of recommendation in his pocket.
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