Laying Down Our Life...

Laying Down Our Life....

Roughly 6700 miles from his home, a young soldier was stationed on a base in Ghazni province, Afghanistan. Suddenly, a car bomb breached the eastern perimeter allowing roughly ten suicide insurgents to rush onto the base. This young 24 year old soldier sprang into action. He ordered his men to move to the safety of bunkers, located all his men, and began to check for casualties within the buildings. As the American soldier moved about in the midst of fire, avoiding insurgents, he encountered a young Polish soldier. The American's father described their mission as simply this, "“They just locked arms and followed each other,"... "They didn’t worry about what language or what color it was. It was two battle buddies, and that’s what Karol and Michael did. To help everyone on that FOB they possibly could.” The two soldiers, worked to counter the forces who had attacked the base. Under continuous fire from indirect and rocket propelled grenades, the two men began to simultaneously fight.

As they fought, hand-in-hand, arm-in-arm, an insurgent rounded a corner with a suicide vest. The insurgent advanced rapidly and as shots rang throughout the choatic scenes of battle, the young Polish officer was wounded in both legs and unable to walk. The insurgent advanced, and the American soldier did not hesitate. Unprotected by armor, the soldier positioned himself between the insurgent and the young Polish soldier, shielding him from further fire and returned fire. The American approached the insurgent while he lay incapacitated on the ground, and the suicide vest detonated. The American soldier immediately stood before His Savior in Heaven having fulfilled the commandment to love one another.

You see John 15:13, says, "Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends." On that battlefield, those young men were not different. They weren't separated by nationality, race, the distance of over 4000 miles from one home to the other, language, or religion. They were simply human. Do I know if that young American was saved, no I do not. I know that his father believes. But what I do know, is that the greatest example of love is in John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life". That example is our God, laying down his life for us, so that we could live for an eternity.

The young Polish soldier went on to have a son, Michael.