I want to thank David Sanford for helping me become a Contributor to the Christian Post Blog.  I have been an avid reader of his and the other writers' work on this amazing site for some time and have always been inspired by the thoughtful and spiritual articles that I have been blessed to read.  It is an awesome experience to add my own first contribution.

In David's April 23 post on Mountain Climbing, etc. he made a statement that got me thinking.  Talking about the risky actions taken in his life, he said,  "I did some pretty stupid things as a young man."  Most of us can identify with this assertion.  I know I can.  As a young Marine Corps officer with a spiritual void at the center of my life, I took a lot of risks, giving little thought to the long range, least of all, eternal, consequences. I seldom thought about God unless I was in mortal peril or in need of something to blame.

 One day in Vietnam, I came under my first mortar attack.  Being shot at in any fashion is frightening, but the straight down, slightly whistling incoming mortar shell is especially unnerving.  The old saying is, "There are no atheists in a foxhole."  What about the poor soul under mortar attack without a foxhole?  On this occasion, I was definitely proof of the old saying.  I prayed fervently to God that he would get me through this crisis.  Even though my superficial effort at prayer apparently didn't go unanswered, I subsequently chalked up my survival to my own 'good luck,' and took away the conviction that I should thereafter dig better foxholes.  How many times in my young life did I blame God for tragedies and give credit to 'good luck' for the near misses survived?

In researching my just released book, Battlefields & Blessings: Stories of Faith and Courage from World War II, I found a poignant poem written by a young man who suffered and survived convoy duty on a small ship in Arctic waters during that war.  He illustrates the same tendency:

     "God took a vacation, left us alone/ Out in the ocean, so white with foam.

     Oh we cursed you, old ship, you were so slow/ But you took us there, where no one would go."

I can identify with the seaman accusing God of abandoning him, while giving credit to his ship for a safe return home.  Fortunately, my eyes were finally opened at age 53, when I turned to Jesus Christ as my saviour.  Since that moment, I have devoted myself to seeking God's forgiveness for the lack of appreciation shown throughout my previous life.  It is now an article of my faith that he indeed did protect me on countless occasions, and that his blessings have been part of his plan for my life.  My responsibility is now to thankfully and carefully discern his purpose for me and to try to align the direction of my life with that purpose.