Running Away To What?
"Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh." (Genesis 2:25, ESV)
Being back with trainees, it's back to usual with problems. I believe that many of the problems these kids make is related to leaving home for the first time. Drill Sergeants will start yelling at these kids from the very moment they step off the bus and will continue until they Pass In Review on graduation day. For most, this is the first step of independence they have ever taken in their lives. These men have finally left their father and mother.
In Genesis 2, there's a place to run to: "...and hold fast to his wife..." Is it too far of a stretch to say that God's design is for us to run from the caring relationship of our parents' homes in order to establish a caring relationship in our own home? Maybe. But I think this is part and parcel with what these young men are going through.
In my own experience, it was one thing to run from home to Concordia University in River Forest, Illinois, which was a caring Christian community that understood that I was going to need care and support in this transitional time. It's a whole other thing to run into an institution like the Army, where Soldiers are purposefully stripped of their identity, have their names replaced with a roster number, and are hauled around in vehicles called, "cattle cars." I can understand the administrative necessity of these things but I wonder about their emotional and mental impacts.
Sadly, I'm one man fighting against an institutional standard that has been around for years. The most impact I can make is on each individual that comes through my door.
Being back with trainees, it's back to usual with problems. I believe that many of the problems these kids make is related to leaving home for the first time. Drill Sergeants will start yelling at these kids from the very moment they step off the bus and will continue until they Pass In Review on graduation day. For most, this is the first step of independence they have ever taken in their lives. These men have finally left their father and mother.
In Genesis 2, there's a place to run to: "...and hold fast to his wife..." Is it too far of a stretch to say that God's design is for us to run from the caring relationship of our parents' homes in order to establish a caring relationship in our own home? Maybe. But I think this is part and parcel with what these young men are going through.
In my own experience, it was one thing to run from home to Concordia University in River Forest, Illinois, which was a caring Christian community that understood that I was going to need care and support in this transitional time. It's a whole other thing to run into an institution like the Army, where Soldiers are purposefully stripped of their identity, have their names replaced with a roster number, and are hauled around in vehicles called, "cattle cars." I can understand the administrative necessity of these things but I wonder about their emotional and mental impacts.
Sadly, I'm one man fighting against an institutional standard that has been around for years. The most impact I can make is on each individual that comes through my door.
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