The Muddy River and the General's Pride

In 2003, a retired Army colonel named Frank sat in a bare church basement in Columbus, Ohio, staring at a circle of metal folding chairs. His wife had left. His career was over. A VA counselor had suggested this recovery group — twelve steps, coffee in Styrofoam cups, fluorescent lights humming overhead. Frank had commanded battalions. He had briefed four-star generals in the Pentagon. And now someone was asking him to stand up, say his name, and admit he was broken.

He almost walked out. The room was too small, the process too ordinary, the people too unremarkable. He wanted a fix worthy of his rank — a specialist, a program, something with prestige attached to it.

But he stayed. He stood up. He said the words.

Naaman wanted thunder and fire. He wanted Elisha to stride out, wave his hand over the leprosy, and call down the power of the Almighty with appropriate ceremony. Instead, the prophet sent a messenger with absurd instructions: go wash in the Jordan, that brown, insignificant trickle of a river. Seven times. Naaman's servants had to talk him into it. And when he finally submerged himself — obedient, humbled, stripped of every pretension — his flesh came back like a child's.

God's healing rarely arrives in the packaging we expect. It comes through muddy rivers, basement meetings, and the terrifying simplicity of surrender.