RECRUIT PRAYER

I have found a recruit parent forum that I view a couple times a week. It is for all Marine recruit parents but is broken down very specifically by training base, company, platoon, graduation date, every imaginable category. The parents of platoon 2108 (Blake's platoon) have started a prayer thread for our boys as they enter their final phase of training.

I post mine here, not to lift myself up as anything more than a mother who misses her son and wants desperately to see him; but merely to record it for Blake.
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Father, thank you for seeing our sons through this journey so far. We ask your healing hand upon those who are injured in body or in spirit.

Please, Father, surround our sons, Your children, with your angels of love and protection as they enter this final phase. Give them wings of eagles so that they may soar and conquer their final tasks. Protect them from injury as they move through The Crucible.

Thank you father for each one of these young men who has chosen this selfless and sacrificial path in life. Thank you for each mother, father, wife, brother, sister and other loved one who is keeping each one of these boys lifted up as he meets his goal.

Lord, thank you for the men who have trained our boys to be members of this mightiest military force in the world.

Thank you, Lord, for the chaplains who somehow reach through the dirt and grime of boot camp and shine a light - YOUR LIGHT - into our sons' hearts. Because, Lord, my son is one of those who has been reached and has chosen to be baptized in Your name. And for that Dear Father, I am eternally grateful.

Lord, I pray for safe travel for the hundreds of families who will be crossing this nation to finally see our sons. Please allow us all to return safely to our homes and embrace our children for even a brief time.

Lord you have sustained us. You will continue to sustain us and our sons. And for this I praise You and thank You.

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My sweet best friend J sent me some much needed words of encouragement one day and reminded me that Blake would be soaring like an Eagle. And so I keep that image in my mind as I think of him nearing his goal. Thank you Jnet.

Two weeks from today we will board a plane and head to San Diego. We will arrive that evening but not be able to see our son until the next day. Oh, the agony of being less than two miles from our child and not hold his face in my hands.....but we are getting close.

Praise God in Heaven....we are almost there.