The Change Was Electric
For the individual soldiers the buildup to D-Day was long and tedious. Isolated at bases throughout England, they were kept as busy as conditions permitted but were told little. Everything was a secret, and no loose talk was permitted. Everything had a number: the tents, the vehicles, the men themselves. Many felt they were without identity among countless thousands of others waiting to do an uncertain job at an indefinite time in the future. One correspondent observed that, “It simply drove the mind into a fixed apathy.”410 On June 3 the same correspondent was finally able to report a profound change in this sullen atmosphere:
That evening the soldiers were told the plan and what they had to do. The change was electric. The suspense was snapped. A wave of relief succeeded it. Now that the future was known and prescribed everything would be easier. We were to embark the following afternoon. We would sail during the night. H-Hour was the following morning… As the men stood in their ranks listening to the colonel you could feel the confidence growing. Here at last was something practical and definite, something to which one could adjust oneself.411
We each deal with a lot of uncertainty in life as we face the indefinite future. We don’t know what crisis waits next with our families, our jobs, or other things we haven’t thought of yet. For me these daily concerns often seem to merge into a vague and semiconscious anxiety. I am always better off when I take the time to deliberately and prayerfully focus on each concern and, with God’s help, formulate some kind of action plan. God wants to either take our worry away or help find us find a way to do something specific about it. Like the men of D-Day we find relief when we know what we face and what we have to do.
Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.
—Philippians 4:6