December 27, 2004

Christmas Contentment

How did you spend Christmas? Opening gifts and eating a feast in the comfort of a warm home with family or friends around? Ted Leichner, father of six and formerly a successful physician in the Nashville area, spent it in Iraq, by choice, and calls his deployment to Iraq "a gift from God." Hear the incredible story in this MP3 audio file - it starts at 32:35. [Windows Media video file here, Windows Media Audio here.]

The teller of the story comments,

You will never experience true contentment in Christ until you come to a place in your life where you are first discontent with what you've been able to do with your own resources in your own life. Because when you get to the end of yourself and you say, 'you know what? I am discontent,' that's when you are desperate enough to make some bold choices to place your faith in an abiding Christ and find your contentment in Him.

2004 is almost over. Do something eternally significant in 2005.

UPDATE: 2nd Lt. Lance Frizzell, who authors the Lance In Iraq blog that I host on BillHobbs.com server space, emailed me a photo of himself with Dr. Leichner who, it turns out, is the doctor in Frizzell's medical platoon. It's a small world.

A very small world: I know Lance through his civilian job as press secretary to the Republicans in the state Senate, and "Instapundit" Glenn Reynolds knows Lance because he plays sometimes with Audra and the Antidote, a Nashville punk band. And Lance knows Dr. Leichner because the two are deployed with the same unit in Iraq. But I don't know Dr. Liechner and I've never met Glenn Reynolds. I'm not sure, but I think Lance knows Kevin Bacon...