Vincet liked to walk home from work, especially the overnight shift. He lived a mile and a half from the store and spent most of the time walking home praying. He found private time wherever he could.

Vincet didn’t grow up in the church like most of his friends. He found Jesus during a dark and aimless moment when his childlike faith in achieving the everyday American Dream life died. When that died, so did any desire to cling to the dream. Or his recent marriage. Vincet let the thoughts of hopelessness and worthlessness take root, and now it was a daily struggle to function with the heavy blanket of depression–kicking his butt, as he put it–and leaving him exhausted. This struggle was particularly intense on his days off, when he had too much time to think about his ruined marriage.

Vincet owed two of his friends his life, Samuel and Jamie. They found him aimlessly staggering down a street miles from home on a bright summer Monday. He was extremely drunk.

Samuel rolled down his window as Vincet staggered along the sidewalk and yelled at him, “Dude, what do you think you are doing? It’s ten o’clock in the morning. Do you have a death wish?”

Jamie was already out of the passenger side and standing in front of Vincet, who was startled by the human wall impeding his progress, and almost fell over. Jamie caught him and gently threw his friend in the back seat of Sam’s old beat-up Ford Bronco. 

Their intervention wasn’t difficult. At first, all they knew was to get the Vincet they knew back. It was Jamie, the largest of the three, who created a sense of hope for him. Vincet was still depressed, but he felt safe and eagerly cooperated with their encouragement.

“I got a plan, guys!” Jamie announced as he walked into Samuel’s small apartment. “All of us graduated from college, correct?”

Vincet looked up and croaked, “Yeah, so?”

“So I suggest we have an adventure. We join the military together!”

Samuel laughed, “That’s a permanent type of adventure. Are you sure you want to do this?”

Jamie took a couple of pamphlets out of his back pocket and handed one to each of his friends. “Nah, the adventure part is a challenge for the three of us. We can become officers with our degrees. It’s called Officer Candidate School. The challenge is this. The first of us who becomes an officer owes the others a fancy dinner of their choosing.” 

Vincet shook his head and laughed, “You mean, if I win, I actually lose?”

The three enlisted in the Marines. All three agreed that it was the best way to experience what it felt like to be enlisted.

Through a stroke of luck, Vincet discovered he would go to the same Battalion as his best friend, Samuel. Straight out of the LAR training at the School of Infantry, they reported to the 1st Battalion, 3rd Marines. Vincet became a driver for Charlie Company, and Sam became a driver for Alpha Company. Jamie, the third wheel in their group, had been picked out of Boot and mysteriously left Boot Camp without saying anything to his friends. 

Samuel died from a shaped charge IED, which cut through the driver’s door of his Humvee and tore apart the inside of the front of the vehicle, killing Samuel instantly and wounding everyone else severely. 

Vincet suffered a similar fate a month later, except that the JLTV (Joint Light Tactical Vehicle) he was driving provided better protection for the driver and his passengers. He still ended up in the hospital with a long recovery time ahead.

It was this event that changed everything. One of the Navy Chaplains visited Vincet in Landstuhl Hospital, in Germany, and found a desperately hungry Marine searching for answers. A month later, and after a few visits from the Chaplain, Vincet quietly poured his heart and tears out in the darkness of the hospital bay and begged Jesus to save him from what now he viewed as a disaster of a life.

That was thirty-five years ago. 

After a successful marriage and five fantastic kids, his friends and many others considered him one of their town’s more mature and seasoned Christians. Vincet and Joansy led a home group for the young married couples in their church. 

The men in the group showed fervor after some of the testimonies Vincet shared from a life of joy and sorrow. However, some of them ended up crashing and burning when they couldn’t work up the signs and wonders. Vincet tried to explain that the only way to walk in the kind of anointing they were trying to walk in was to spend time in His presence.

His Pastor encouraged Vincet that these frustrations came with the work of discipleship.

Home produced a familiar sense of comfort, a place to recharge with Joansy. There was a cautious sense of finally finding the American Dream, even if it didn’t look the way he imagined. 

When Vincet walked in the front door, Joansy was at her desk in their shared writing den, the place where their prayers kept their family together. Her AirPods in her ears were moving her to something rocky. The obligatory sneak and surprise capped the rest of a productive day.

Bedtime was no longer a battle to get the kids into bed. Credit that to the intensity of high school sports.

Everyone’s internal clocks were set to ten PM. Joansy was fast asleep and would not wake up until the morning. Vincet, however, set his alarm for 3 AM, his time alone with Jesus. He had begun a routine of prayer during the military and never stopped. He told anyone who asked about how prayer was the only thing holding him together during times of trials and sorrows. He tried never to miss an early morning time with Jesus.

That morning, shortly after beginning to pray, a hush fell on the den, and a powerful and profound Holiness settled over Vincet with the heaviness of a lead X-ray blanket. His breathing slowed, and he dared not move. Vincet wasn’t sure he would be able to even if he wanted to. The Holiness gained strength, and the awe and desire to prostrate himself on the floor fled as the righteousness and overwhelming power of His Presence captured his ability to move or speak.

Vincet realized the Lord was working on him. Transforming was going on.

Sometime later, as the rising sun began to lighten the sky, the heaviness was replaced with a delicious sense of Love and a gentle sense of being held by your father as a child. Vincent realized that the annoying feeling of doubt that sometimes came during life’s difficulties was gone. It was as if he had crossed a threshold into confidence.

Later that morning, Vincet couldn’t find words to describe the morning to Joansy. She believed his story but suggested he keep this one between themselves and ask Jesus what it was all about that night, after home group ended and everyone left. However, Vincet wouldn’t have much time to ponder the event when Joansy brought him a letter addressed to him with no return address.

There were only two sentences written in sterile military block print.

Vincet,

I owe you a fancy dinner.

See you soon.

Jamie