Are You Okay

I was knocked out in Afghanistan beneath the crushing sound. The Humvee lay inverted, twisted metal upside down. Death and blood around me, barking dog against the night. The village closing in while chaos swallowed every light. Though you were home in Germany, your voice broke through the gray. You reached across the distance: “Are you okay?” You called the man inside me back when I was nearly gone. I opened up my eyes because your love kept reaching on. Yet, Miles away, Your voice found me there. Three words through the chaos. Three words like a prayer. The woman who loved me Was calling my name. Are you okay? Your voice carried farther than the smoke. Are you okay? Three words became my lifeline through that hell. When I could not find the strength to wake, Your love reached through what war could take. Are you okay? You called me back to life that day. I came home carrying wounds I could not make you understand. Afraid you wouldn’t believe the war still lived inside this man. You never gave me reason, but the fear became my guide. Home was always where you were; I ran from what I felt inside. I ran from every memory and everything that looked like me. Thought leaving you could make the man inside me finally free. In 2009, I chose myself, betrayed you, then denied The covenant I should have fought for, for a selfish pride. First love, mother of our daughters, you kept reaching through my fear. I left the wreckage and the truths I never let you hear. Spent fifteen years avoiding what I finally had to feel. What happened to me afterward cannot change the wounds I sealed. The war explains the brokenness; it never clears my name. Trauma shows me where I bled, not why you had to bear the pain. You saved my life when war had left me somewhere far away. Then I broke the heart that reached for mine: “Are you okay?” You still show up. You still reach. You still love me with your eyes. And all I see reflected there Is the pain I left behind. I was not okay. I was terrified. I was carrying the dead. I was running from myself When I should have run to you instead. Father, heal the heart I wounded. Teach me how to stay. Make my life a truthful answer If she asks again someday. Are you okay? I can finally answer without hiding. Are you okay? I was lost and too afraid to let you know. You knew me before the man that war became. You see me while God calls me by a different name. I cannot change the answer that I gave— But Christ can change the man who answers today. Are you okay? I’m still healing. I’m here. I’m not running away. Your voice found me When I could not find the way. By His grace, I can answer you today.