The Green Berets of Grief

Over the Memorial Day weekend, I saw on TV a young woman and mother of one make as fine a tribute to her killed-in-combat husband as I have ever witnessed. She was a Green Beret of Grief.

Green Berets are renowned as highly intelligent fighters who have been trained to jump out of airplanes, climb vertical cliffs, ford raging rivers and eat snakes, if they need to." They show their pride in their training and in what they do by wearing green "covers" on their heads. They are proud soldiers.

The young woman I watched exercised tight discipline on her emotions; she was dignified, smart and brave. She had felt the pain of all humanity and she was stronger because of it. Her personal strengths had been augmented and refined into something of which her husband would have been immensely proud. She could  become a national leader, if she so choses. 

For those in great grief with or without an attachment to the military, deep comfort can be found in the teachings of a Jewish carpenter who was meek and mild but had power to command the wind and walk on the waves. "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted," he said. They have been marked by their encounter with the pain of the world that extends even to the animals and their comfort contains an enablement to march on and do even more. Our loving God has "consecrated to them their deepest distress" and it shows, for those with the discernment to recognize the subtle signs. There is no glistening medal or unusual hat, but they have been healed and sent back into the fray as Green Berets of Grief.