Are You a Timex?

Imagine a series of events that starts with your alarm not waking you up.  While you rush around trying to get ready for work, the kids miss the bus.  So, you have to take them to school, which only makes you later for work.  The next day, on the drive to your job, the car breaks down.  After calling three towing companies, one finally agrees to come and get you.  “Joe” informs you that it is going to cost $1,000 to fix your car, never mind it is a $1,000 you don’t have.  The next day does not bring any relief.  The doctor’s report comes back with less than positive news.  To top it all off, over the weekend your spouse decides to he is ready to change you in for a “younger” model.

What would it take to get you to climb out of that bed the next morning?  You just want to close your eyes and make it all go away.  You are not sure you can go on.  I mean, after all, your world sort of just fell apart.  But here is the thing…trust me, you can make it.  You are more than a conqueror.

People experience life shattering events of all flavors.  Military spouses get a visit from a casualty notification team.  Phone calls occur informing of a death in the family.  Doctor reports have the c-word in the diagnosis that no one ever wants to receive.  Supervisors call in employees and tell them that their position was “done away with” because of company downsizing.  And worlds continue to fall apart.  But, trust me, you can make it.  You are more than a conqueror.

You are more than a conqueror.  I could just stop there with those six words.  But I want to tell you a story.  It is the story of a conqueror.  His name was Robert Preston Taylor.  He was a chaplain stationed with the Army in the Philippines when Japanese forces overtook the island.  Taylor was one of thousands captured and later forced into the infamous Bataan Death March.  He survived for more than three years in the Cabanatuan POW camp, including several weeks in solitary confinement and the “heat box”, which he shared with flies, maggots and mosquitoes, all for smuggling food and medicine to prisoners in need.

In October 1944, Taylor and the other prisoners were loaded onto “Hell Ships” and sent to the Japanese main land.  American bombers patrolling in the area spotted the ships and began attacking them.  Taylor was injured twice during these bombing attacks.  The Japanese soon abandoned the ships and left the prisoners to die in the holds.  However, a bomb ripped a hole in the deck of the ship Taylor was on, so he and the others were able to climb through and jump into the water.  Fortunately, the dive-bombers realized the men were fellow Americans so they called off the attack.  Chaplain Taylor survived only to be put onto another prison ship and sent to yet another POW camp.

On September 11, 1945, Chaplain Taylor’s nightmare finally came to an end.  The Allies liberated the POW camp, so Taylor was headed home.  He arrived in San Fransisco on November 1st and was reunited with his wife Ione.  He ran up and embraced her.  But something was wrong.  She did not return the affection.  She explained that she had heard that he was killed, and in the months since, had met another man and remarried.

Can you imagine surviving 42 months of captivity in several POW camps, watching many of your friends die in front of you?  Can you imagine being crammed into a metal box for weeks, where it felt like the sun was 10 feet away?  Can you imagine being wounded by your own forces because they mistook you for the enemy?  Can you imagine sailing on that ship for San Fransisco, each moment caught up in only one thought – seeing your wife for the first time in four years?  Can you imagine your spouse explaining that she had remarried because she thought you were dead, and now there would be no future together?

I tell this story because the world needs Robert Preston Taylors.  Too many people face daunting challenges and feel as though they cannot take another step forward.  Those suffering today need to know and understand that others have survived equally devastating news and have found a way to bounce back.  Today, we call that resilience.  A friend of mine compared the idea of resiliency to the old Timex watch commercial (you know the one where the tag line is “It takes a licking and keeps on ticking”).  What we call it is the least important aspect of all this.  I doubt the word resilience ever graced Chaplain Taylor’s lips, but he knew he could “take a licking and keep on ticking,” because of his faith.

The apostle Paul understood this as well.  In his second letter to the Corinthian church, Paul wrote:

“In labors more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequently, in deaths often…  Three times I was beaten with rods; once I was stoned; three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been in the deep; in journeys often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of my own countrymen…in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea…in weariness and toil, in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirst….” (2 Corinthians 11:23-27)

Sounds eerily familiar with Taylor’s own experience…beatings, prison, sleeplessness, hunger, thirst, cold, in perils of water, and even perils of one’s own countrymen (remember the bombings at the hands of his fellow Americans).  In spite of all this, Chaplain Taylor understood, like Paul, that while suffering at the hands of this world, we can bounce back, but more importantly, we can be “more than conquerors through Him who loved us”.

**As a footnote to this story, Chaplain Taylor remained in the service, transferring to the Air Force and eventually becoming the third Air Force Chief of Chaplains.  You can read his story in the book, “Days of Anguish, Days of Hope” written by Billy Keith.