The RefineryA Veterans Day post from The Refinery Flint, in partnership with Christ Heart Ministries
(All Scripture quotations are from the New Living Translation, NLT.)
At eleven o’clock in the morning on November 11, 1918, the guns went quiet on the Western Front. The eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. After four years of mud, gas, and slaughter, men climbed out of the trenches into a silence most of them had forgotten existed. That moment of silence is why we keep this day.
This year, Veterans Day falls on a Wednesday. If you know us, you know that is the day we sit at the Blue Line Donut Shop in Flint, handing the Gospel across the table to whoever God sends through the door. Some of the men who sit with us served. A few of them will tell you about it. Most of them won’t.
Because here is what I have learned sitting across from veterans for a lot of years: for many of them, the guns never went quiet. The armistice was signed on paper, the discharge was signed on paper, the flight landed, the family hugged them at the gate — but the war came home in the duffel bag. It followed them into the living room, the marriage, the bedroom at 3 a.m., and the church pew.
So on this Veterans Day, I want to do two things. I want to honor you. And I want to tell you that the silence you were promised is still available — not from a treaty, but from a Person.
First, We Honor You
Scripture does not treat honor as optional. Paul writes, “Give to everyone what you owe them... and give respect and honor to those who are in authority” (Romans 13:7, NLT). We owe you something, and today we say it plainly: thank you.
Thank you for raising your hand when most people kept theirs in their pocket. When the Lord asked Isaiah, “Whom should I send as a messenger to this people? Who will go for us?” Isaiah answered, “Here I am. Send me” (Isaiah 6:8, NLT). That is the posture of every man and woman who ever took the oath. You said send me before you knew where you were going or what it would cost.
And some of you know exactly what it cost. Jesus said,
There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.John 15:13 (NLT)
Some of your friends did just that. You carry their names. You carry their faces. On Veterans Day, you carry them a little heavier.
When Israel crossed the Jordan, God told Joshua to pull twelve stones out of the riverbed and stack them on the bank, so that when their children asked, “What do these stones mean?” the people could tell the story (Joshua 4:6–7, NLT). Veterans Day is one of those stones. It exists so a nation remembers what was paid for the ground it stands on. We remember. We will not let the story go untold.
Second, We Tell You the Truth
Honor is not the same as healing. A parade does not fix a nightmare. A free meal at a restaurant does not touch moral injury. A “thank you for your service” can land on a man like a weight, because he knows what the service actually was, and he is not sure he deserves the thanks.
That is why The Refinery exists, and that is why we are grateful to stand alongside Christ Heart Ministries.
Christ Heart Ministries exists for the veteran. Its foundation is a simple promise: in Christ there is healing for every wound, seen and unseen, whether it came from the war fought overseas or from the war they survived as children and youth, long before they ever served.
Read that again, because it names something most people miss. Many veterans fought two wars. One overseas, and one long before that, inside the walls of the home they grew up in. Some put on the uniform hoping to outrun the first war, only to have the second one pile on top of it. The world sees the combat. It rarely sees the boy who was already wounded before basic training.
God sees both. “The LORD is close to the brokenhearted; he rescues those whose spirits are crushed” (Psalm 34:18, NLT).
He heals the brokenhearted and bandages their wounds.Psalm 147:3 (NLT)
Not some of the wounds. Not just the ones with a diagnosis code. The wounds.
And He does it at a cost to Himself. “He was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed” (Isaiah 53:5, NLT). The King of heaven took the wounds so that wounded people could be made whole. There is no scar you carry that He does not understand from the inside.
The Real Armistice
The prophet Isaiah saw a day coming when God Himself would settle the disputes between nations: “They will hammer their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will no longer fight against nation, nor train for war anymore” (Isaiah 2:4, NLT). That is the final armistice, and it is coming.
But you do not have to wait until then for the war inside you to stand down. Jesus is not offering a ceasefire; He is offering peace.
Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.Matthew 11:28 (NLT)
The Refinery is built on Malachi 3:3 — the Lord sitting “like a refiner of silver, burning away the dross.” Notice the Refiner sits. He does not throw the silver away when it comes out of the fire looking blackened and scarred. He stays with it. He watches. He keeps working until He can see His own reflection in it. That is what He wants to do with you. He is not done with you. You are not too far gone, too dirty, too angry, or too broken.
Healed to Help Another
Here is where your story turns. Paul calls God “the source of all comfort. He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others” (2 Corinthians 1:3–4, NLT). A veteran who has found rest in Christ can reach another veteran in a way no one else on earth can. You speak the language. You know the look. You can sit across the table and say, I’ve been there, and there’s a way home.
That is the heart behind the partnership between The Refinery Flint and Christ Heart Ministries, and it is the vision behind the Grace Discipleship Training Center, which is still in its formation stage: a place where veterans battling PTSD, addiction, and moral injury can be rebuilt from the inside out, and then sent to bring others home. “Two people are better off than one, for they can help each other succeed. If one person falls, the other can reach out and help” (Ecclesiastes 4:9–10, NLT). That is true for soldiers in a foxhole. It is true for us.
What You Can Do This Veterans Day
If you are a veteran: Don’t spend this day alone. Call a battle buddy. Come find us on Wednesday at the Blue Line. And if the weight feels like too much, tell somebody today. Start with Walking Home, our blog series written for you.
If you love a veteran: Do more than say thank you. Ask him how he is really doing, and then sit still long enough to hear the answer. “Share each other’s burdens, and in this way obey the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2, NLT).
If you are the Church: Pray for the veterans in your pews and the ones who stopped coming. Pray for Christ Heart Ministries and The Refinery as we labor to reach them. And see how you can help.
If you are in crisis right now, please don’t wait on a blog post. Call the Veterans Crisis Line: dial 988, then press 1. Or call us:
Peter (Christ Heart Ministries): 810.922.1473
Bill (The Refinery Flint): 586.404.3316
For God has said, ‘I will never fail you. I will never abandon you.’Hebrews 13:5 (NLT)
To every veteran reading this: thank you. You came home. Now let the Lord bring the rest of you home, too.
In His service,
Brother Bill
The Refinery Flint, in partnership with Christ Heart Ministries