Great Courage

You have heard me say before that we are placed where we are meant to be. That the way things happen are the way they are meant to. In the last week I have told myself these things again and again and again. 

And it isn't just during these several days that I have had to remind myself. It is not just with these uncertain changes that we all need to remind ourselves. It is anytime that an assignment comes up that we don't want, a location comes that we do not want, a job, or a unit, or a deployment, or a school, or a housing assignment, it goes on and on and on. 

The things that come up in our journeys that we do not want are the very things that can destroy it. The very things that take something from us that we don't get back. These are the very things that can put enough stress and strain on a marriage to end it.

How you face them, how you endure them, has everything to do with whether or not you survive them.

Whatever obstacle put before you exists to teach you who you are, what you can do. There is a purpose set within it.

The deployment C is facing makes my skin crawl. Speaking with another spouse today about the uncertainty surrounding it literally gave me continuous chills, goosebumps, my body was shaking. Everything about it makes me uncomfortable. 

But despite all of that, despite anything strangers tell me, or what I hear on the news, this deployment is going to happen. He will be leaving. I cannot change that. I cannot stop that from taking place. 

He will kiss us good-bye and board a plane with so much of what happens after that up in the air. Logan will have his first day of kindergarten without him present. Children will be born. Graduations will be missed. Loved ones will pass while they are away. Precious moments will happen and pass while they are not here. 

I can't change it. I can't stop it. 

These things will not go away.

But everyday until then and every day that follows after matters. Every day is given to us for a reason. Everyday is worthy of joy. Everyday is deserving of your whole heart, your complete self.

Every action that you take or do not serves a purpose, makes a difference along the journey. We are not promised to know the path ahead, to know when the rough spots will comes, to know how they will end. But you do choose how you make it through them.

It isn't always pretty. It won't be without tears. But there is another side to every hurdle, the simple reward of making it through, of not being beaten down by it waits on the other end. The strength that we gain is waiting.

This life takes your whole self. It takes every tiny, tiny speck that makes your character. It requires every ounce of courage God ever put in a woman.

And He made you the strongest of women. 

Whatever is looming ahead of you, whatever uncertainty, whatever fear, whatever obstacle, you are ABLE to live through it. You are ABLE to thrive through it, to learn from it, to gain strength in it.

Loving a soldier means letting him go with grace, holding his hand when there are no words, smiling through tears, trusting in the journey, and living every single day - apart or together. 

You are a woman of greatest courage. There are thousands just like you, thousands more who have lived through this, who have lived IN it, and have come out stronger. Thousands who were given this life because they were able to love through it. There are thousands more who will follow behind. 

Show them your joy.