25th Annual Kiwanis Prayer Breakfast 5.2.13
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(Gallery by Sarah Cole | scole@al.com)
HUNTSVILLE, Alabama – Life offers a hundred reasons to worry, but the Bible reminds us in hundreds of verses to hold on and to trust God, Chaplain Scott Carson, told the 400 or so business, education and government leaders gathered Thursday, May 2, 2013, for the annual Huntsville, Madison and Madison County Prayer Breakfast.
"Remember: Sometimes when things seem to be falling apart, they might be falling into place," Carson said during the breakfast sponsored for the 25th year by The Kiwanis Club of Huntsville at the Von Braun Center in Huntsville in recognition of the National Day of Prayer.
In the U.S., Carson said, worry is the number one temptation, according to the Americans who responded to a poll circulated in February.
“Our life is filled with anxious events – like ‘sequestration’,” Carson said, stirring a quiet chuckle of agreement among those in the audience, which numbered about 600. “I didn’t even know that word a year ago.”
U. S. Army Chaplain Scott Carson addresses the audience at the 25th annual Huntsville, Madison and Madison County Prayer Breakfast in honor of the National Day of Prayer at the Von Braun Center in Huntsville, Ala., on Thursday, May 2, 2013. The breakfast is organized each year by the Kiwanis Club of Huntsville. (Kay Campbell / KCampbell@al.com)
Carson, currently Command Chaplain of the U.S. Army Materiel Command and Senior Army Chaplain at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, has served as a chaplain in Germany, Italy, Belgium Afghanistan and Iraq. His rousing call to faith today was illustrated with dozens of encouraging Bible verses, illustrations and anecdotes, including a tribute to Chaplain Emil Kapaun. Kapaun, who served during combat in World War II and Korea, died in a Chinese prisoner of war camp.
His heroism and service to other American prisoners literally saved lives.
Kapaun's courage was recognized by President Barack Obama on April 11, 2013, when Kapaun was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.
Kapaun was a beacon of hope and encouragement to men in an impossibly cruel situation, Carson said.
“His message was always the same,” Carson said. “Never give up. Trust in God. You can make it. You can endure.”
“Nothing,” Carson said, in a closing remark that refers to Romans 8:38 and to the posters the British government had prepared in the event of a German invasion, “neither heights nor depths or tornadoes or even sequestration – nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God. Keep calm and carry on.”
Kay Campbell, religion reporter for The Huntsville Times and
, can be reached at