Precious Children

C has (and will continue to have) a fairly rigorous training schedule. So far this year he has been home for less than five weeks total. And the weeks that he is "home" he is at the office on average fifteen hours a day, his phone rings when he is tucking the boys in bed, or finally going to see a movie with me, or taking a moment to breathe, or sleep. 

I can count on one hand how many times we have been able to all sit down and eat a meal together in 2012. 

One hand.

The year is a quarter over. 

Tick-tock, tick-tock.

Sleeping is hard when they aren't here. I have never spoken to a military wife who says she sleeps better when her soldier is away. Every little noise, every gust of wind, every thought, every unknown, every question, every scenario creeps in through the darkness. And even when all those things don't, you still have a side of the bed that is cold and vacant and untouched. 

Nights are hard.

And somehow, on the hardest nights, Logan just knows. That little boy, who will be four in just a few days, knows when his purest heart is needed. On nights when I can't sleep for the longest, when I toss and turn, and think, he almost always walks in quietly, climbs up onto the high bed, and says, "Can I sleep on Daddy's side?" 

And I always say yes.

He doesn't do it every night. He doesn't do it every time C isn't here. But the nights he does, those are always the nights that I need that tiny voice asking if he can be there.  

Children are a blessing. The strength my little ones give me when I am tired and worn ... I thank God for them. 

Children are incredible. Military children have a gift to heal our hurts, to strengthen our aching hearts. We hold them tighter, they hold us tighter because sometimes mommy needs that precious, precious touch. Sometimes, Daddy needs that squeeze around the neck to remind him that they are who he fights for. 

 The nights can be lonely, the days can be long, the clock ticks and ticks and ticks, never stopping, never pause. Military children are precious, and loving, and resilient. I am reminded every day of the gifts that they are.

Gifts men and women lay down their lives to protect. 

Precious, precious children of God.

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April is the Month of the Military Child. Pray for our military children - from the unborn who will wait to meet their daddies, to the grown men and women who, very often, becomes soldiers and/or the men and women who love them. 

God Bless our troops and those they fight for.