Last night I finished the PBS series entitled, “The Vietnam War.”  I had recorded the 10-part series and it has taken me about a month to finish the twenty plus hours of history. I was moved to tears many times as I watched the story of war and its casualties. I was also taught many life lessons by the Holy Spirit as I digested the thirty years of war rehearsed before my eyes. 

 I was a teen during the war, but I was impacted because my brother served two tours in Vietnam during the mid-sixties. Also, because I watched the news and saw the pictures of a cruel battle that raged amid political corruption, lies and civil unrest. I also had friends, boyfriends, cousins, uncles, and aunts who crossed the ocean to another world to fight for my freedom and the halt of communism. I will forever be thankful for their sacrifice and their love for this country. 

While there are many things I gleaned from the series, I think the greatest spiritual lesson for me came during the last segment when veterans shared their experience of returning to Vietnam and receiving healing. The courage to visit their worst nightmare, to bring hope to the Indigenous people of Vietnam and to help rebuild a country devastated by war was no less than amazing. The rebuilding of Vietnam has come from the veterans who fought there on both sides of the war. It has not come from the politicians who started it and funded it but from those who suffered through it. 

It’s hard to put into words but I am going to try to share the healing process I watched using three phrases: re-visit, re-envision, redeem. I have used these steps in counseling for many years, but I have never seen it work as I did for tens of thousands of wounded warriors. 

To accomplish healing from pain and suffering there must be a time when you re-visit the event. Most of us would rather deny it, minimize it, and not talk about it. Opening the past often opens shame, condemnation, fear, and the feeling of failure. But the wound only heals when it is opened and scrubbed clean by the Holy Spirit. A dirty wound may heal on the outside, but it never heals deeply without cleansing. King David revisited his moral failure with Bathsheba in Psalm 51: 1-3 NKJV, “Have mercy upon me, O God, According to Your lovingkindness; According to the multitude of Your tender mercies, Blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, And cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is always before me.”  In the new testament this promise found in 1 John 1:9 NKJV, is foundational in the process of healing. “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”  Acknowledgement and cleansing, not denial and blaming others, is the first step in the healing process. 

The second step is to re-envision. The Vietnam veterans who returned saw a country side that had recovered from Napalm, bombing and the blood of comrades. They saw green fields, rice paddies, working people and rebuilt dwellings that helped them re-envision their memories. They understood the war that raged in their minds was over. It had happened, but it was over. They began to re-envision Vietnam as a place of life and hope not death and destruction. Revisiting and re-envisioning the past puts our memories in perspective. Our memories are often bigger than the event and need to be adjusted by the current truth. Not forgotten nor denied, but re-envisioned with love, hope, healing, and forgiveness. 

The third step in the healing process is redemption. Redemption can best be illustrated as a trade. As a child, I pasted S & H green stamps into a book. I collected a certain number of books and marched down to the redemption store and traded them in for something my family wanted and needed. It took work and tasting a lot of awful glue, but I could receive something new and valuable by trading in something as simple as pages of stamps. I didn’t want the stamp books, a necessary and real part of the experience, but I wanted the prize of redemption. It was exciting to hand over what I had for what I could receive through the redemption process. My actions impacted all those around me, not just me.

Many veterans, in the process of redemption, have started schools for the children of the Vietnam war. Many have relocated to Saigon/Ho Chin Minh City to teach English and life skills to the fatherless. Many have traded hate for the enemy into friendship. Many veterans are using their medical expertise to redeem those maimed by the war and to start clinics for the citizens’ health needs. They are trading in their pain for something extraordinary that changes them and those around them. 

So, it is with God’s redemption and healing of mankind. It’s a trade in; our sin for His forgiveness and healing. When we are willing to honestly re-visit, in faith re-vision and in humility receive redemption, the war in our minds and hearts is over. Peace and purpose replace the devastation of the enemy and we can be free.

Is there a war zone in your life you need to re-visit, re-envision and redeem?