Why the Ardennes?

I've always been fascinated by the applicability of events in World War II to my daily life. To me, the Ardennes symbolize an unwinnable campaign, a time when men who were outnumbered, outgunned and undersupplied refused surrender and prevailed, learning who they were and why they were fighting.

If you've seen Band of Brothers, you've seen the episodes that take place where men are largely stuck in bomb craters with artillery firing above their heads, trees shattering, deafening noise and vast, gut-wrenching times of frozen waiting. Waiting to see if the Germans will advance, waiting to see who will live, who will die, waiting to hear from the command if winter clothes will be available, wondering if some officer somewhere will surrender or make the call to charge out of the woods into certain death. Weeks of living in the snow and slowly, one-by-one, losing the people you've come to trust to an unseen but deadly enemy.

I've never wanted to blog. I've never really felt like I'd have much to say, but as I've begun to plan for this sabbatical I've felt very clearly from the Lord that this was a step of faith I need to take. That I need to trust those around me enough put my thoughts out there and let people love me through the messy process. And so, the natural name for my blog, for this intentional effort to process in a way unnatural to me, to fight my way through all the muck in my life, will be "Through the Ardennes".

Why? As I think through what I hope God will do in me during this sabbatical, I feel as though I've been in a bit of an Ardennes myself. The historians call what happened in the Ardennes the Battle of the Bulge but I'll call mine the Battle of the Soul. Amidst many changes, losses, transitions and, now, the uncertainty of 4 months of the "stay-at-home life" and the "freedom" of sabbatical, I'm faced with the true situation of my soul. Fatigued, sad, confused, unsure of what's next...My blog is, in a sense, my own personal bomb crater. The place where I will sit, waiting to hear the voice of the Lord, wondering what will next come in this uncertain life and hoping to hear from the "Command" about what next move will advance the grand campaign.

The men in those holes emerged from weeks of darkness only to encounter an even more unspeakable horror- the reality of liberating a concentration camp. They were faced with what they really believed, why they believed it and who they were becoming as a result. I hope to do the same.