Mary Says: "I believe I can fly!"

Jeffrey sitting in a Black Hawk Army Helicopter, age 4

I believe I can fly!  I believe I can touch the sky.  I think about it every night and day, spread my wings and fly away!

This is Mark on bottom, and Jeff at age 4 on top

I have this memory of sitting in a lawn chair in my neighbor Janie's back yard, 17 years ago.  Our kids were playing together, and us moms sat chatting on a summer afternoon.  I looked up on Janie's rasied deck, a full flight of stairs up and saw my 4 year old son flapping his arms with a Batman cape on.  I stared for a second and it dawned on me that he might actually think he could fly.  I ran to him and got down to his eye level to talk  business.

"Jeffrey, you do know that you can't actually fly, don't you?", I said seriously.

"Mom, if I really flap my arms very very hard, I think I can fly off of this porch like Batman does.", was his honest reply.

I kept it simple, but went into one of my motherhood speeches about how movies were not real, and how there was no actual Batman.  He obeyed me, but I was never quite sure he believed me. 

Jeffrey has adored two men in life.  1. Batman, 2.  His Dad.  

Mark was a hellicopter mechanic in the army for the first 7 years of Jeff's life.  By age 2 Jeff knew the name of every airplane that his dad could find him a model of.  He had quite a vocabulary and it included words like, "Look Mom, a Schnook Helicopter" or "Stop, there is a Black Hawk."  He had his eyes on the sky for anything that flew.

When my kids were only 3 and 4, Mark and  I were so thoroughly frustrated because the army had just put him on orders to go to a special training to get his next rank.  There would be no promotion without BNCOC.  We grudgingly sent him of to VA Beach to school,  angry he would be missing Halloween and Thanksgiving.   

A week after he was gone I got a call to go to a special meeting.  The unit had invited me out to a secret bunker to tell us wives that all of our husbands had been shipped off to a secret REAL LIFE army mission.  The atmosphere was surreal, and I had to remind a few leaders that Mark was gone to school, not gone on this real mission.  

I was kept informed of the men's status by my close girlfriends.  We had many wive's get together's and the support was truly special.  On a Sunday night, October 3, 1993, my girlfriend was just about to leave my house when we saw on the news that some Black Hawk Helicopters had been shot down over Somolia.  Don't ask me how we knew, we just knew.  We looked at each other with wide eyes, and waited for news.  

By the next morning, it was confirmed.  It had been our unit.  My friend's husband had been shot, but was alive.  Many of our friends had wounded and missing husbands or boyfriends.  I had a good talk with God that morning, thanking him for the inconvenient timing of the school that protected my husband's life.  It was a sad and emotional time, one I will never forget.  No one who went through those dark days will ever forget October of 1993.  

Fast forward 12 years.  We have now gotten out of the army, my husband got himself a degree and a better job, and we had moved back home to MI.  Jeffrey came home from school in his Sophomore year telling us that he had decided he would be a soldier in the Army.  Didn't that sound like a good idea?  No, we said, you won't be a soldier.  You are going to get a college degree, and do whatever you want to do with your life, except be a soldier.  

Well, we knew that Jeff was interested in aviation, so we did whatever we could do to help him get a degree in Air Traffic Control.  He met a wonderful girl that I have told you about, and a few months before his wedding  last spring, he called me one day.  

"Mom, I have to tell you, and everyone  involved in my life the truth about my future, before I go any further with this wedding.  I cannot stop feeling like God is calling me to the Army."

"Jeffrey, are you crazy?  You are going to graduate next year with no debts, why on earth do you want to go in the Army?"  I said in return.

Well, our conversation went on for quite some time.  He ended up telling me that the more he had prayed about his life decisions, the more he knew God was calling him to be a soldier.  I conceded.  What else could I do?  Mark was beaming with pride, yet cautious of this life for our son.  

God is a really cool God.  Who knew that the whole time Mark was working in the civilian world he missed helicopters more than he would ever admit?  God did.  That is how we have ended up miraculously in Connecticut where my husband is now the Safety Manager on the very same helicopter he loved more than ever.  And starting over was hard.

I am studying a book called Experiencing God.  It is a wonderful study.  Yesterday Jeff called me to ask if I would gather some important information for him so that he could get his flight packet into the army for review.  He wants to be a Army Helicopter Pilot as soon as he graduates this May.  It felt like I was enabling my son to do something dangerous as I scoured around for his diploma that he requested.  

I signed onto Facebook hours later and saw his posting  It said "There is no safer place on earth than directly in the middle of God's will."  With a lump in my throat, I posted below it, "and I pray he will always keep you safe."

This morning I went to bible study and one of the first things that came out of the mouth of Henry Blackaby's recorded video message was.  "You are never in a safer place than directly in the middle of God's will."  

Ok God, I gotcha, loud and clear.  Now please help my Mother's heart as we go through the rest of this story. Not only does he believe he can fly, he believes you are telling him to.