By: Gabriela Yareliz
I was going up the stairs, after getting off of a train. There were so many people, it felt like the people were pushing me up the stairs. I couldn’t see where I was going, and I felt slightly uncertain about whether my foot was going on the next step up.
Life is like that, often times. We try to go slow to make sure of our footing, but the circumstances cause us to rise and move forward. Our circumstances may be different and they may demand from us different things.
I watched a powerful documentary by Producer/Director Terry Benedict, also the producer for Mel Gibson’s Hacksaw Ridge, based on the same story of Combat Medic Corporal Desmond Doss. Doss is the first conscientious objector to be awarded the Medal of Honor.
One of the men said that he had witnessed Doss saving the seventy-something men he saved, in the middle of enemy attack. He was saving men who had mocked and harassed him for his religious conviction. The man said, he [Doss] would run back into the battle area (weaponless) and nothing would hurt him. He would keep running back into the middle of combat and dragging men out. “It was as if God’s hand was on his shoulder.”
Meanwhile, Doss would keep running back to save soldiers, his only thought being the prayer, “One more, Lord. Let me save one more.”
This made me reflect deeply. Not just about Doss’s uncompromising convictions and integrity, his courage and his prayer life, but it made me wonder– when I am in the midst of my circumstances, as I am dodging bullets I may not see or enduring a dark night, what if God’s hand is on my shoulder? What if people can see that?
Love God and man and serve all, was Doss’s lifestyle. The purest essence of Christianity was revealed in his actions. His elevated thoughts on human life show what he believed about God as Creator and Supreme.
This week, God granted an important prayer for me that has been a long journey. It was a dark year of struggle and perseverance. And when I saw the result, it made me realize that I too had experienced God’s hand on my shoulder. That as scripture says, there may be weeping for a night, but joy comes in the morning. My morning came.
And more importantly, when you achieve or endure your own combat, you know you were not alone. God’s hand was on your shoulder. “In Him we live, and move and have our being.” Acts 17:28
GABRIELA YARELIZ 