His Banner Over Me

The package in the mailbox this past Saturday morning was lagniappe in a week of blessings.

I had basked in the restful and renewing atmosphere of Family Camp. Brent was home after a five-month deployment. On the same day Brad, Michelle, and Tyler had arrived back in the city after their jungle adventure. Knowing they were all safe had lifted a weight I hadn’t realized I carried.

And now the package. The return address bore Blake’s name along with that mysterious military code which reveals absolutely nothing about his whereabouts. But the postmark proclaimed that he had been safe and sound on June 1. The green contents label read simply, “Flag,” a birthday/ Father’s Day gift for his dad.

I wanted Steve to experience the same delight I had felt when I opened the mailbox. Knowing that he would be coming home to an empty house while the rest of us were enjoying camp, I placed the package on his pillow.

The next morning when I drove up from the campgrounds and met him at the doors of the church, his first words were not, “Honey, you’re late again!” (Amazing, I know!) His face was working with emotion, and his eyes were glistening. “Did you see what Blake sent?” he marveled.

The certificate accompanying the flag told the story: “[This flag] was flown in the face of the enemy aboard a Special Operations aircraft through the skies of Iraq during a Tactical Combat Mission by our nation’s leading Task Force targeting Al-Qaeda in Iraq.”

Blake’s card and personal message added even more meaning to what will certainly be a family heirloom: “When I flew the flag for you I was reminded that there are indeed things worth fighting for. That flag, flown with you in both mind and heart, forced me to think about just what we are defending, and how precious those things really are.”

I researched the missions flown by the Air Force in Iraq on that date, and wondered which of them was Blake’s and what story that piece of cloth might tell. I tried to picture how it might have made its flight. I gave thanks that its mission was accomplished successfully that day, yet I will feel so much more grateful when Blake’s missions are all behind him and he is with us again. I picture him and his brother folding that flag into its proper military fold before it is placed in its own special display case.

I feel such pride in knowing that two of our boys are engaged in service to our country, taking on the enemies of our flag and all it stands for. At the same time, there is comfort in knowing that the resources of the U.S. Military, as represented by the flag, are available to come to their defense if need be.

But even an American flag has its limits.

On Monday the phone rang with news we couldn’t have imagined hearing. Brad had been admitted to the hospital with stroke-like symptoms. To be so far away when our children were facing such troubling circumstances in a foreign country, with so much uncertainty about the outcome….

Yet even in this dark news, there were things to be thankful for. Thanks that Brad was in a large city rather than the jungle. Thanks that Michelle’s job meant that she had already researched medical options. Thanks that Brad’s symptoms had abated after a few hours. Thanks for a supportive missionary family to come alongside to care for Tyler and give support and encouragement. Thanks that, though difficult, there was a way to communicate with family in the States. Thanks for God’s children who went to prayer as soon as they heard the news. Thanks for a doctor determined to be deliberate and thorough.

I’ve thought about the flag again. It would be great if Brad and Michelle could be on American soil, communicating with American doctors, and cared for in American facilities. But in spite of what they don’t have, I feel overwhelmingly grateful for what is theirs – the grace of God that is going before them, providing for their needs, guiding and overshadowing them.

The early Jewish nation knew it tangibly as a pillar of fire bringing warmth to the desert by night and a pillar of cloud bringing shelter by day. King David, though, envisioned a flag. As he prayed for deliverance in Psalm 60, he comforted himself in God’s promises with these words, “You have given a banner to them that fear You, that it may be displayed because of the truth.” Said most simply, “His banner over me is love.”

I love to think of God flying that banner in the face of our enemy and announcing, “This far, and no further. My protection starts here! I will defend what is precious to me.” For Brad, Michelle, Blake, and all those I love, I can’t think of anything more comforting.

A Few "Aunt Frankie" Stories

Aunt Frankie’s memorial service last Saturday lasted for almost two hours and would have gone even longer if my brother Tom had not cut the sermon short.

If we could all put our stories of Aunt Frankie into one volume, what a book it would make! Here’s one I never heard until last Saturday:

Back in the early 60s, Aunt Frankie and her pastor’s wife were calling for the Sunday school when they found themselves driving behind a vehicle whose driver was obviously drunk. As he approached a railroad crossing, he made an abrupt turn onto the tracks. The bumpy ride got his attention, and he quickly came to a stop. Aunt Frankie had pulled off the road and jumped out of her car. “What are you doing, man?” she called. “You’re going to get yourself killed.”

Walking up to his car door, she demanded, “Move over, I’m driving you home.” She instructed her astonished young pastor’s wife to follow them. Fortunately, the drunken man knew his address, Aunt Frankie lived forty-plus more fearless years, and the pastor and his wife had a great story.

On the way home last week, I thought of this long-forgotten story to share with my children: Back in the day, single gals were advised to use only their initials for telephone directory listings. One of my roommates had not “gotten the memo,” and believe it or not, there really are losers who have nothing better to do than to go through the phone book looking for women’s names, so we got a few obscene phone calls. We always slammed the phone down. One night I even slammed the phone down on a caller with a slurred Southern drawl who turned out to be my housemate’s boss calling about work. I was zealous!

During this time, the early 80s, Aunt Frankie received an obscene phone call of her own. Apparently no one had ever told her to slam the phone down. When the voice on the other end of the line whispered, “Do you want to go to bed?” Aunt Frankie whispered back, “Do you?”

Excitedly, the voice responded, “Yes!” Now Aunt Frankie stopped whispering and said, “Well, go to bed!” Then she hung up the phone.

Aunt Frankie told my mother that story, and my mother told me. She told me not to tell anyone, but it was way too good to keep.

One evening in the late 80s Aunt Frankie and I were together in a little seafood restaurant. We bowed our heads in prayer before we began to eat. At the table next to us were four or five guys relaxing with beers after a day’s work. If you’ve ever been in a restaurant in South Louisiana, you know how loud it can get. It wasn’t difficult to hear one guy grouse, “Oh great, we’re sitting next to a freaking Sunday school!”

That was all Aunt Frankie needed to start a conversation. Wagging her finger, she said, “That’s what you need!”

The guy couldn’t believe she was for real. “Pardon me?”

“You need a Sunday school,” she admonished, smiling.

Now in Politically Correct School, I had learned that it’s never okay to begin a sentence with “You need,” no matter what you might think. Aunt Frankie never went to PC school. She just pressed ahead and made four or five new friends that night. They conversed throughout the meal. She invited them to church –mine – since hers was in another town (and one of them actually showed up a few weeks later). By the time we got up to leave, they were begging to buy her dinner.

The thing about Aunt Frankie was that she was neither impressed nor intimidated by anybody’s titles or lack of them. Their reputations, good or bad, meant absolutely nothing. The fact that someone was a stranger was no obstacle. She was simply and completely a people person.

“Everyone loved your mother,” she would tell me, “and my sister Grace.” She knew she was more abrasive. Aunt Frankie was nothing if not confrontational. But when it came to loving back, no one could out-love Aunt Frankie. She loved so well. Everyone felt it.

You would think ninety-nine years would be enough for a life, no matter how well-lived. Somehow it’s not. But for all of us who find it hard to say goodbye, there are many more who are welcoming her home. I can just imagine the stories they are telling.