Ted Roberts

The thing I miss most about being a pilot in the Marines is the Ready Room, where we gathered before and after our flights.

It smelled of sweaty flight suits, and occasionally, coarse humor blued the air while our inflated egos competed, but I loved it nonetheless.

Then came the day I had to let it all go. I hadn't grown up in the church, so when I met Christ in a bunker in Vietnam, my life had to change.

Being a fighter pilot had been my dream since childhood, and here I was living it. But one morning as I sat reading the Bible, I struggled to understand what Paul was saying in Romans 8:15: "You received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, 'Abba, Father'" (NIV).