Safe Home

Lars is home!!!! I am overjoyed to be able to share with you that our Marine Captain son is home from Iraq. At 2:30 pm on Friday, August 8, his C-130 landed at his base at Cherry Point. And Lars is now home with his wife Kelly and nearly-three-year-old son Bengt in New Bern, NC.
Can you imagine our joy? Our overflowing gratitude? It is, really, almost beyond words. In my head, I keep bursting forth with the Doxology.

We have not yet seen him. We all felt their little family needed some time to reconnect and adjust before any larger family celebrations; those will come Labor Day Weekend. But it is so good to talk with him and know his voice is coming from safe in the USA. And the pictures tell the story: he is back where he belongs—home with Kelly and Bengt.

In Ireland they have a custom I love. When you’re leaving a home where you’ve visited—even for a short time—they say as you leave, “Safe home, now, safe home.” Lars is “safe home.” We praise God! Thank you thank you thank you Jesus!

I also want to thank the many of you who have prayed for him and his family and for us. And I want to ask you please not to stop praying. For all the troops. For the Marines who flew into Lars’ base in Iraq to replace those who came home. And for the men and women all over the world whose families are now praying and waiting for them to come home just as we have for Lars.


Actually, our prayers go even deeper than that, don’t they? We pray for all our children—living at home or grown, single or married, military or civilian—to come “safe home.” Yes, to us and to their families. But even more, safe home to the Lord who wants to make His home in their hearts until we’re all “safe home” with Him.

It’s my prayer for you and for all your children: Safe home, now, safe home.