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Silver Star testimony
By Kailah Kim, Cadet –
I look around the room and see many faces of guests that I do not know. Some guests with uniforms on and some without. People of different age, race, and background. Although I may not have ever spoken with you, there’s a sense of familiarity that I feel when I see your faces—like family and friends I haven’t seen in a long time.
And I realize that it’s because I’ve known my fellow session mates for the last two years. We’ve worked, learned, cried, and laughed together. We’ve “11:59-ed” together. I’ve heard formal testimonies and also intimate stories of how they were shaped and led to following this path. And you were in all of these testimonies and stories. So, through your cadets I feel as if I’ve already met you.
Isn’t it amazing how children look like their parents? I see the little ones at the College for Officer Training at Crestmont, and I can’t help but smile when I see little mannerisms that come through the children that mimic their parents. I realize not everyone here may be biological parents, but you have all been our spiritual parents. And I recognize the spiritual mannerisms and habits that your children have received from you. Some pray quietly, some not so quietly. Some wield the word of God like a medical scalpel, cutting sharp and deep into the soul, while others wield it like a sword, slashing away the lies that the enemy may throw at us. All these spiritual disciplines, reflect the faith that you’ve help to foster in us.
You have prayed for us, encouraged us, and probably even fought with us. I’m sure you understand what Paul was saying in Galatians 4:19, how he was going through “the pains of childbirth until Christ was formed in us.” We’ve learned so much through your discipleship, but what has impacted us the most was not from your active teaching but from what we’ve observed through your life. We’ve watched as you submitted yourself before God every day, showing us what a life in pattern of obedience looks like. We’ve witnessed that the battle is won in posture of knees bent and hands raised. We’ve watched you be filled with the Holy Spirit, speaking with the authority and the love of God, freeing people from their chains. But most importantly we’ve seen you be broken, raw, and real before Abba Father. It is when you thought no one saw, when no one noticed, you laid yourself bare and vulnerable before God. We saw. We noticed.
We saw your struggle and pain as parts of your old self died, but we also saw God’s power of transformation that raised you up to be even more beautiful and stronger than you were before. It is through these observations that we know that we can have hope in our journey before us. We can hope to go out and make disciples of all men, as Jesus has called us to do. We can know that it will not be because we are perfect, but because 2 Corinthians 4:7 says “we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us” and through brokenness, Christ can be seen ever more clearly.
We are forever grateful that you have been responsible for the talent that God has placed into your care. The faces of the cadets you see before you is evidence of your doubling of that talent. You didn’t bury it in the ground, afraid that it would be lost. So until the day our Lord and master calls us home, we will continue on this path that you have modeled for us so that we will all one day hear the words we’re all waiting for: “well done my good and faithful servant.”
