US Army Chaplain Brad Lewis’ is no stranger to tension, comforting soldiers at the front line and coming under fire on countless occasions. But one strain he never gets used to is the separation from his family. In his monthly blog, Training for Eternity, he shares how the Christian kindness of strangers can make all the difference.

I wouldn’t say I’m experiencing writer's block, but I’m certainly experiencing some kind of blockage. I’ll call it gratitude block. It happens all the time. Usually like this"

First you travel to a war-torn Middle East country. Then one day you are minding your own business and people you don’t know start lobbing mortars in your general direction in a concerted effort to separate you from the physical world and force you to assume room temperature. Later, in an effort to ease the severe shakiness that comes with an extreme adrenaline overdose, you sit down and write about it in your blog that gets approximately 6 hits per month. Then the whole world starts logging onto your blog within .005 microseconds of Hugh Hewitt reading your post on his nationally syndicated radio talk show. Then you begin to panic because, come on, look at all those hits! After a while people begin reading your other posts and notice how one time you mentioned that you have the world’s coolest wife. At this point Judy from Sunshine Quilts sends you a note and says, “I’d like to make your wife a quilt!” So you correspond a bit about colors and textures and the extreme coolness of your wife and Judy says, “I’ll get back to you”. After several months you get a small package from FedEx. That’s when you remember that Judy forgot to mention that she is the Michelangelo of the Longarm. The next thing you know you are overwhelmed with the perfection of the quilt that she made by hand for your marvelously cool wife and despite your best efforts to sit down and write a note of thanks, you can’t because of gratitude block. It usually happens like that.

My wife received this quilt just last week and I am dumbstruck at the beauty of it. It is the perfect combination of colors and has some absolutely magnificent stitching in it. Probably the most amazing thing about this quilt is that Judy made it as a gift for someone she doesn't even know and asked for nothing in return. James said that true religion is to care for widows and orphans. I'm glad to say my wife is not a widow and my kids are not orphans. But Judy saw my little family, noting that I could not be present, and reached out to them. If I understand things correctly, that is almost exactly what James was talking about.

Please go to Judy’s blog or check out some pictures of her work and drop her a line. Tell her you saw my beautiful wife’s quilt and that I think it’s incredible. Thank her for using her gifts and talents to serve our country. Then start looking for ways to serve others as well.

Thank you, Judy. You have a talent for blessing. You’ve blessed my family more than you can imagine.

Photos courtesy Chaplain Lewis and Soldiermediacenter