Chasing Grace: Bibles and Wedding Bells

I was chasing the meaning of divine grace the summer of 1976 because grace had brought me back to uniform service. I was an old soldier but a new Army chaplain, a Vietnam veteran returning to active duty in my early 30s. I was downright fatherly to teenage soldiers who comprised my flock at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. Dozens of clergy served with me, mostly Protestants, a handful of Catholic priests, and one rabbi. 

We were the last generation before Muslim and Buddhist chaplains extended our effectiveness with today’s military. Chaplains counseled soldiers and families regardless of creed. I never said Catholic mass or conducted Jewish sabbath services, but troops often sought guidance from the closest clergyperson available, their unit’s chaplain. That was me. Catholic soldiers sometimes called me Father. I never corrected them. 

Trainees zoomed through a crash course to turn civilian kids into soldiers. All were volunteers, eager to wear the uniform and see the world, especially since the Vietnam War had ended. Well, not everybody. Some crawled from bunks in the predawn darkness and wanted to go home. In the U.S. military, Uncle Sam had their oath for three years, so they were going nowhere except to undergo progressively rigorous training. They craved an escape route without going AWOL and facing courts-martial. Drill sergeants promptly lined up the malcontents and marched them to the unit chaplain. Me. I had no power to abrogate their oath, but I wanted to offer ongoing support after meeting with me. Maybe a pocket Testament with Psalms. The problem? I had zero budget for spiritual literature. 

Looking to Spiritual Wisdom

I recalled the American Bible Society provided free Bibles to institutional chaplains. So I wrote to ABS on military letterhead stationery and requested assistance. Time passed, and I figured my letter had fallen into the wishful thinking file.

Chasing grace sometimes means ask and you will receive, other times it means not now … wait patiently, but you can always trust divine love.

One Sunday afternoon, another lineup of soldiers waited outside my office. One by one, each man said, almost word-for-word, “Sir, my girlfriend’s pregnant, and I gotta get a discharge.”

After the 10th instant replay, I leaned out the door and asked, “How many of you guys want a discharge?” Every hand went up, except one. I told him to stand fast, offered the others a prayer for divine grace, and invited them to return when the training schedule allowed. Michael, the soldier who didn’t want a discharge, was from the American South. His girlfriend, Debbie, wasn’t pregnant. Michael and Debbie had planned to marry. When he joined the Army, Debbie’s parents told her to break it off. They didn’t have the power to enforce the decree, but in a traditional Southern family, their opinion mattered.

I wrote to Debbie’s parents and told them Michael had come to the chaplain with his feelings. It was clear he deeply loved Debbie and was heartsick at the thought of losing her. I wondered whether they saw the same reaction in their daughter. With prayer for the family, I sent the letter. Now it, too, was left to divine grace. 

Wedding Bells

Response to my letter came swiftly. Debbie’s parents relented, and one month later, Michael’s battalion graduated from basic training. Wedding bells rang at the battalion chapel, where I joined Michael and Debbie in holy matrimony. Relatives from both families traveled to attend. 

While the wedding party lingered for hugs, kisses, and photographs, the senior chaplains’ assistant found me and said, “What did you do, Chaplain Shepherd? There’s a moving van out back with umpteen boxes of Bibles for you.”

ABS had come through with 10,000 pocket Testaments with Psalms, hundreds of full-size paperback Bibles, and hundreds of smaller editions in English and Spanish. 

I smiled at the second demonstration of divine grace in a single day. I learned that summer that chasing grace sometimes means ask and you will receive, other times it means not now … wait patiently, but you can always trust divine love.