The Girl Who Was Too Young

Dear Twenty-Two-Year-Old-Me,

I know you're in love. I know that the first time you saw him with that ruck strapped to his back, packed with everything he needed for two weeks back at home, I know that brings you butterflies. I know you are deeply, unapologetically, consumingly in love with a man who wears a uniform. 

I know that terrifies you.

I know that every person who doesn't understand this, who thinks you're too young to marry him, who says you have "too much ahead of you", I know they are saying that because they love you as dearly as he does. 

Don't fault them for that. You are young. 

You do have so much ahead of you. 

They want the best for you. They can't know what the future holds. Forgive them that. 

I know you worry about leaving your beloved city - your home, your family. I know that very idea keeps you awake in the darkest hours. I know you never imagined a life that would not include the draping limbs of the great oaks of City Park, the festivals, the music. I know you never thought you would do anything other than your set plan. I know you will mourn that for some time.

That's okay. 

I know you never thought you would marry a man who has sworn a vow to give his life for his nation if necessary. Never entered your mind before him. 

It's okay to be scared about that, too. 

I know you think you will be able to ignore that part of your life - the military side of your new world. I know you think you can separate yourself from it, avoid it, pretend it isn't there. Oh how I know you want to believe you can. 

Sunshine, somewhere down the line you're going to learn the more you try to swim away from it, the more you are going to find yourself drowning. Somewhere down the line you are going to realize it isn't all about you and about how you didn't sign up for "that". Somewhere down the line you are going to have to wise up.

You are going to have to be humbled.

Somewhere down the line you are going to watch your husband's face when he stands at a memorial honoring his fallen friend - you are going to want so badly to hold his hand when he raises the other to salute. You are going to spend your first anniversary mourning the man who took his place. You are going to want to take that guilt away - you are going to want to make it all end - to feel the hurt so he doesn't have to. You are going to have to know that you can't. Somewhere down the line you are going to rub your finger over the bracelet on his wrist - engraved with a name you do not know - and you will notice in all the time that you have worn his ring, he has worn that band on his arm. Somewhere down the line you are going to watch a government vehicle drive down your street and you are going to fall to your knees praying it doesn't stop at your house. You are going to fight for air the moment you realize you've been holding your breath. 

Dearheart, someday you are going to watch that man march away from you and not know if he is going to come back. Someday you are going to have to hold a screaming child back who wants to run after him. Someday you are going to pray daily that the infant you are holding will get to know the man who created him. 

Someday you are going to need to be part of the life you live. 

Someday you are going to hear news that you don't want to - news about that little one you didn't plan on having so early - that is going to break your heart. Someday you are going to sit in a doctor's office and wait for results that will change that child's - and your - life forever. You will sit there without your partner - without the other half of who that child is - and you are going to have to be strong enough to carry that.

You are going to have to have love great enough to embrace that, to fight through that, to win the battle.

You are going to have to have the support of a community that knows - that heart-breakingly knows - that we need to carry each other. You are going to have to have enough grace to let your pride go and let them carry you a ways.

You have to choose to be part of that - and you have to realize that now - right now. From the get-go.  Because, twenty-two-year-old-me, embracing that, accepting that, Oh, the world you will belong to. 

You will have the honor of watching a child be born by one of the strongest women you will ever know. You will know how to hold a woman whose body collapses in your arms from the weight she has carried for too long. You are going to see joy - absolute JOY - when a daddy holds his child for the first time. You are going to have the most intimate understanding of what it is to see the deepest pain in that same moment - in that same father's eyes. You will know grief that forces you to look for good. You will face darkness that demands of you to bring light. You will learn that it is by giving that you receive and that by serving you are fulfilled. 

You will find a purpose in the uncertainty. Strength in weakness. Hope in despair. You will learn what it is to feel broken and what it is to feel whole. You will learn to share that with others. To empower those around you to do the same.

You will hurt until you cannot feel. You will ache in a way that will make you question. You will age in a way that you never thought possible; you will find wisdom you didn't dare to seek. 

You will love beyond words. Understand what it is to be grateful in the pit of your soul. You will be shown this life is worthy of your tears, worthy of the sadness. Worthy of your joy. You will know you were made for this. You will thrive.

You are too young for this. You are too young. 

But, my dearest self, you are able. You are worthy. You are ready. 

__________________________________________________________

What would you tell yourself when you entered into this life if you could?

To Do Unto Others

There are certain parts of who I am that I know are weaknesses and strengths at the very same time. I know that my love for people – for getting to really know people – is something I get from my mother. I know it is a strength. I know learning from people and learning about people and seeing how different personalities work together brings me joy and fulfillment and hope. I also know that this very love for people leads me to always believe the best in another, to always try to do right by those around me, to always assume that each person is fundamentally good. 

That opens me up for a world of hurt.

Not everyone has good intentions. Not everyone thinks for themselves. Not everyone understands or cares to find out the truth before they speak. Not everyone will see the world – or the situations in the day to day of it – the way that each of us does.

There is a very fine line between keeping grace and defending everything you are – everything you believe. A line so thin that it physically hurts to hang onto it – to not cross it. It makes me ill to see and hear ignorance and hatred and unjustified disdain.

Every part of me wants to call out every untruth that has been said, wants to offer fact to cancel out fiction, wants to explain that their source of information is so wrong that they need to see things with their own eyes, and to remember the kindness done to them.

I don’t believe a person should call out the acts they do for others. I don’t believe goodness shared is something to be boasted of or told about. I believe people should do good because we as children of God are made to do good. That when a friend or a neighbor or an acquaintance or a stranger is in need you give what you can, you do what you can, you offer what you can.

When a fellow army wife is sick while her spouse is away, you bring a bag of groceries, then you make another trip and bring pedialite for the kiddos who have caught the bug too. When a friend is in labor while her husband is deployed and she asks you to stay, you stay. When someone’s washer and dryer is out-of-commission, you open your home and wash their clothes. When a friend has surgery and is stuck in bed (and shares the same "addiction"), you deliver Starbucks. When a fellow spouse has a new baby, you make a muffin basket and cook up a meal. When someone is having a hard time, you tell them they can do this, that they are made for this, that there is no room for doubt. That they are strong enough to make it through, that they have to believe in grace. We give what we are able simply because we are called to give.

I believe that when it is needed, you go the extra mile. When someone is hurting, you offer comfort. When people work hard and give much that you thank them and acknowledge them and recognize that their choice to do good positively affects the whole.

I believe that the choices you make – that when you choose to look at the whole picture, at the entire person, at the entire family – when you choose to do good by them, to do better by them – that the correct choice to keep that quiet can be hard when it is something they will never know. When it is something that they can never understand. When it is something that when they speak ill out of ignorance you want to shake them and tell them. When the choice to do good by a family, who does not understand, will remain something between you and your Maker … that is a time for grace.

The logical part of me knows that people do hateful things for little reason. That one person whispering in the ear of another can distort what they have known for themselves. That people will twist and misconstrue and make the truth whatever works for them. They will make reality what they need it to be.

Our human inclination is to defend our own – to defend ourselves. To defend our friends who are hurt. To lash out. To prove wrong. To correct error. To pick apart an argument and show just how embarrassingly false it is. 

For as good as the people in this life are, there will always be those who speak louder, who lie to lie, who need to have their side told – no matter how false it is. They will do everything they can to destroy the good around them. To spread their anger. To harm those who need guidance. They take advantage. They remember things as they weren’t.  

Days like today may be meant to challenge my resolve. To challenge me to love in spite of. To give in spite of. To do good in spite of. 

Because there is no tally between you and those you do good by. There is no keeping score or boasting of or checking off. You do good because you are called to be kind, to give what you are able, to do unto others as you would want done unto you.  

Ignorance hurts. Lies cut deep. But to give up who I am, to give up how I to my core believe I am called to live, due to ignorance! What a tragedy that would be. 

To Love Enough

I don't think there is a military spouse among us that hasn't heard the words, "Oh, I could never do that!" 

I don't think there is a military spouse among us who has never at the very least thought, "This, this is too much."

For a generation that far too often ignores limits, who so, so often believes and strives to do the impossible, I find it is those who are of my generation who are the first to shake their heads and say they could never do what I do. 

They they could never do what we do when we commit and marry a man or woman who serves.

I was one of the many who shake their heads and say, "No, I could never." 

I was raised in a family where marriage is finite. Where that commitment is a commitment. A sacrament. Holy. From above. Sacred. To be protected and nurtured and worked through. That that love must be and will be enough.

There was a time when I honestly thought something must be wrong with women who went a year at a time (or more) without seeing their spouse. I thought their marriages must be weak. That their love must not be truest. I didn't understand how a man could love a family that he would so "readily" leave. I didn't think that a military marriage could hold the values of marriage I was raised on. I didn't think that the two could exist in one. 

Lord, how you humbled me.

I know that there are people who look in from the outside and think what I thought. I know the friends and strangers who say the words, "I could never do that," are not necessarily saying them for the reasons I would in the past. I know that we don't ever get to feel the full extent of what someone else feels, to know what they know, to live how they live.

But for every woman that has looked at me and said, "I could never," I will tell you that you can.

For every new spouse that has said that farewell for the first time, I will tell you, you will make it through.

For every mother struggling to raise that new baby without her partner, or juggle and balance and keep the other parent present, I will tell you, you are able.

You can love across borders. You can love across war zones. You can love through IED's, and mortars, and patrols, and trainings, and road-side bombs, and nights alone, and black-outs, and fears and dread and tear-soaked pillows.

You can love enough to hold the hand of your partner as he writes out his will. You can sit beside him as his abled-body directs his funeral. You can love enough to hold the hand of a friend while you push through labor with out your husband. You can love enough to clap with all your might and simply let the tears roll while watching your first baby take his first steps without daddy there to cheer. You can hold your child back when his hero walks away. You can hold that little body as he kicks and screams and holds out his hands wanting nothing more in the world than for that man walking away to run back to him.

You can hold your little one to your chest when he wakes from a nightmare and all he asks is "why?" You can hold him, and rub his hair, and squeeze him to your heart without uttering a word. You can  freeze and say a prayer when that notification vehicle rolls down your street. You can hold your breath and then fall to the ground with that relief. You can struggle with the guilt and the gratitude and the confusion and the sorrow.

You can hold enough love to blanket your children with the love of two. You can cry enough tears to wash your pain away. You can scream and punch pillows and get back up and continue on. You can wait. You can live fully.

You can live through this day and the next and the next.

You can love enough to let him walk away. You can love him enough to hold your tears. You can love him enough to not allow resentment. You can love enough to love this nation as he does. You can love enough to understand that there are somethings you never will.

You can love enough to love completely. You can give enough to make you whole. You are able to live this life. You are given grace when you live with faith. You are given the promise that you can endure all that threatens.

You are placed where you are placed because you are able to thrive - you are able to do the most good. You are able to grow. You are able to love.

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.

Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 

Love never fails." 

(1 Corinthians 13:4-8)

A Good and Safe Rule

Very often we hear people talk about, "Well, we are just going to move again." Or, "There isn't any point in meeting new people." "Why should I paint? We just have to paint when we leave." 

We are always looking ahead. There is always a move around the corner. No place is permanent. No home is one where you can put your sweat and time into creating a garden that you will get to enjoy three years down the road when it is matured and worth every back-breaking moment. Every friend you make you will farewell. Every unit you are in will one day no longer be "your unit." The families you consider your own will change. The people you cling to move away.

There is nothing permanent in this life.

I know that that can become difficult. I know that the moving and the changing and the starting again gets old. It makes you tired.

I read something yesterday that I had never seen before but so much of it is how I try to live my life. It was in the home of another army wife. From the framing I could tell it was a gift of some kind from a previous unit. It was so very fitting.

I don't believe in temporary homes. I strongly believe that we are a community with many homes. New Orleans is my heart. New Orleans is in my blood. Fort Campbell sits deep within me as well for far different reasons. My first homecoming was in one of its hangars. My first memorial. The birth of our first child. So much of that post is very much my home. Fort Benning allowed me to meet my husband, putting him just close enough to his home that our paths could cross. Three years later it introduced me to some incredible women who were walking the same path at the same time. It afforded me a handful of strong friendships. That Infantry-blue-blooded post holds a piece of home for us too.

Every place is temporary but home is carried with you. Every place you are brought to, every path set before you, is meant to become part of your "home". Yes, walking away from where you invest your time and your heart is painful. Yes, leaving the friends you make - or having them leave you - never gets easier. But it makes you love greater. I would take that heartbreak over numbness any day. It makes you understand the value of goodness and compassion and kindness.

The more invested you are, the more of you that you put into your parts of home, the more you find where you belong, the less temporary it all becomes. Every place this journey has taken us is carried along the way. Every house, every neighbor, every farewell, every welcome home, finds a place in the next. 

It is a good and safe rule to soujourn in EVERY place as if you meant to spend your life there.

Because you are spending your life there. Every place gets part of your life, but every part of your life will carry that place. 

LIVE in it. INVEST in it. Claim every second of it.

Spend you life, wherever you are, wherever you go.

Spend your life, LIVE your life, and love every home along the way.

One Day at a Time

These past few days have done little to make anything easier. Both of the boys have been up all night at some point this week because of some illness. C just got home and the first night he received four phone calls throughout the 8 hour period that the boys were asleep.

I had to cancel two meetings I really wanted to have because I am so very tired and the boys aren't totally healthy and to be quite honest I have been dreading the next rough spot I know has to be looming.

I have had so many moments of "Really!? Really, one more thing?!" 

I have struggled so much with trying to find balance. That is one of the good things about me, I can almost always find balance. I can find the good. I can see the other side. I find needed strength in others, give needed strength to some. 

There has been so much weighing on us that I have found no balance in any of it. I haven't seen any good. One thing has been added onto another and another and another. It has weighed so very heavy on my heart. I have been in a place of struggle I haven't known in a very long time - and never in this journey.

This morning when I got up out of bed, I had no motivation to do anything. I wanted to have a "blah" day and, for whatever reason, a book was left on our pedestal table that is usually with C at his office. Inside is every evaluation and award and course completion he has ever received. It's his "I love me" book. 

I have never sat down and read it. I have seen some of the things in it but I have never actually sat down and gone through the entire thing. While the boys were eating breakfast I sat down and read every word, from his first oath of enlistment to his most recent bronze star. Fourteen years of awards and evaluations and certifications.

I was in tears when I was done and for the first time in a very long time they were good tears. I physically felt a weight lifted off my shoulders. I sat up straighter. I hugged that book like a fool. Somehow I knew, really knew that we were going to be okay. Whatever comes, whatever we finally come to know in the future, we will be okay. 

I have been telling myself that. I always, truly believe that there is a purpose, that at some point we always get to see the bigger picture. I have not stopped knowing that but this moment today let me feel it.  

I know C is deserving and a good soldier and whatever comes will not change that. But what I know more and what matters most to me is that he is a good man and one incredible father.

Whatever comes will be what is meant. Whatever we will face will hold a purpose. In this moment I am hopeful rather than fearful. I am believing rather than dreading. I am living rather than giving in.

The road ahead is uncertain, tomorrow is never promised, but today I know to be certain. I can give my all one day at a time. Step-by-step I can give my whole heart with confidence and love and joy. Step-by-step, one day at a time.

I am grateful for this day.

Positive Turns

I never thought I would enjoy teaching. 

I really, really thought I would hate it. I didn't think I would be any good at it. I thought I would teach my first class and I would walk away from it. 

I didn't think I would love it. 

And I really, really do. 

In the last class I taught at ACS last week, we had all the students/volunteers introduce themselves, let us know where they were from, tell us what their FRG experiences had been like. I stood in the front with a fellow instructor with twenty-seven-years in, still an active-duty spouse, and we listened to the different paths, the different stories, different experiences.

Almost every person in that class was taking it because they felt that something "wasn't right" in their current FRG, or it was broken, or their experience had been so poor before. I couldn't help but think how much that takes of a person to look at something that is broken, that in some cases has done harm, and to choose to be part of the team that rebuilds. To take that initiative. To say "this stops here." "This changes now." "I am part of the positive turn."

That is what is incredible about military spouses. That is what makes us strong, what makes our community strong. 

When something is broken, we fix it. When something is hurting, we heal it. We don't wait for someone else to step up, for someone else to demand a change. We choose to become part of the positive change, part of the greater good.

So much of this life - of any life - is about being the one who steps forward, who says, "This isn't right," "We can do better."So much of this life is about acting now, becoming part of the positive in this moment, creating healing and goodness today.

It isn't about waiting for someone else.

Our soldiers didn't wait for someone else to step up.

They chose to be part of something great.

The women (and one man) in this class chose to embrace the life, to not be beaten down by previous, negative experiences. They took the broken bits and chose to try to fix them. That takes courage. That takes faith. It takes goodness and strength and determination. 

To believe in good, to strive for good, after living through bad should be applauded and fostered and encouraged. 

It was heartwarming and reinvigorating to see so many people ready to be part of the positive. 

I now understand why people teach for their lifetimes, why people put up with the behind the scenes paperwork and administrative. I understand why people give so much of themselves in a classroom. You get to be part of fostering that goodness. You witness determination. You can see the resolve in people to keep pushing, to keep thriving. You see the spark catching.

It's remarkable. It's breathtaking. It's empowering. 

You choose what you do with any situation. You choose what you take part in and what you step away from. You may never know how much good you do, but you always choose how much good you don't. 

You can choose goodness each day. EVERY day you get to decide. Thrive or sit back. Fix something or let it sit idle, or continue to break, or continue to do harm. Become part of the positive or wait for someone else to.

It really is amazing when you really get to thinking.

You decide when and where good exists. That tiny spark is waiting. You get to choose. Goodness spreads. 

Go ahead, set the world on fire. 

Livin' Like He Leaves Tomorrow

It happens.

One day there is a deployment looming. Then there isn't. Then there is. Then it's to somewhere else. Then they aren't deploying. Then they are. Then they aren't.

It happens. 

I have heard this every where. Everyone hearing another rumor, another change, another place, another time. It seems to be happening every where. I have heard the same echos from friends spread across the nation.

They are deploying, then they aren't.

They aren't and then they are.

People are leaving with two-months notice. People are preparing with eighteen months ahead of them.

We are all being jerked in one direction or another. I can't tell you into which one of these we fall. I can't tell you into which one of these we were in last week or will be tomorrow. Jerking here, a jerk there. One mindset, another. One heartbreak, one sigh of relief. 

It may be just enough to drive you mad. It drains your sanity, your understanding of reality. What is true, what isn't. 

Who knows.

Back and forth. Back and forth. Back and forth. Ups and downs.

It's beyond tiring.

 Tomorrow I may hear something different. Tomorrow you may hear something different. And then two weeks later is will probably change. It seems to be where so many of us are. 

As the changes in info come, as the changes in timelines and if's and when's continue to bombard our hearts with one emotion after another, I am choosing to live in the same way. I am choosing to put the rest out of my mind and live in the very same way, regardless of what that day's rumor brings.

I am loving him like he is leaving tomorrow. Supporting him as if it is always a "when" rather than an "if". When they are deployed there aren't any "if's". We ignore the "if's". We shut them out. Remove them from our minds and focus on the "when he comes home." 

No "if's". Never "if's".

He is training for the mission. He is preparing for battle. He is gone more than he is home because of what is coming. 

I don't believe in "if's". 

As hard as it may be to not get my hopes up at the rumors that may circle, as much as I want to cling to that "maybe they aren't going", I know that at some point, at some point, they will go. 

They always go.

So focus on every day you have and live it like it is preparing you for the battle. Live it like it matters because every day is worthy. Every day is valued. Every day must bring joy to hold onto for the journey that is always waiting before you. 

Prepare as he prepares. Love as he loves. Wait as he waits.

Live in the unknown and claim it. Do not sink into it. Live every single moment, every single day, as if he deploys the next. 

Acceptance

Over the last two days I have been in and out of training to become an ACS (Army Community Services) instructor. A friend of mine (one of the coordinators) thought I would be a good person to "teach" Army families.

We'll see.

While looking through the section of the AFTB (Army Family Team Building) lessons I have to mock-teach tomorrow, I began questioning if this is something I can do. I have never been one that can be reigned in to a script, to follow directions step-by-step, to "stick-to-the-program". It's one of my weak spots. 

The topic I was given - on the surface - seems like a perfect one for me. It is all about helping new spouses best understand what expectations are realistic and unrealistic when entering into the military life. I could talk one-on-one with a new spouse about the subject from the first boom of the cannon at reveille to the final boom signaling retreat. 

But none of it would be in the script. 

One thing here and another there, but most of what I would want to say wouldn't be what the Army put in print. 

People enter into this life with all kinds of different expectations. I entered into this life full of the negative thoughts, the stereotypes engrained in my brain, the "when will this be over?", and "why do I have to give up what I want?" I didn't support the military. 

No really, I didn't.

I didn't understand the life, the choice, but, man, I thought I did. I thought I knew it all. 

Some spouses enter into the journey with rose-colored-glasses, taking Army Wives the show to be the "reality" of the life. Falling in love with the uniform and then falling flat on their faces when they realize the uniform eventually boards a plane, enters a war zone, can't be home for dinner, for birthdays, for anniversaries, for bad days, to change a flat tire, to hold your hand while you undergo childbirth. 

It doesn't matter if you started the journey from one of the extremes or anywhere in between. Where you begin does not determine where you end. 

Every opinion I held about the military and the life it leads has changed. Every single one.

My mindset, my outlook, my hope, my joy, my everything came from one moment.

The moment I recognized and accepted the reality of this life.

It isn't enough to recognize that your spouse has given a vow to a nation that directly conflicts with the vow he made to you. It isn't enough to realize that a country's priorities will belong above your own. It isn't enough to recognize that your husband is a soldier.

It isn't enough.

It isn't enough to understand that he won't be able to work nine to five. It isn't enough to recognize that his job is twenty-four hours a day, three-hundred-sixty-five days a year. It isn't enough to understand that he is at all times a soldier first. 

It isn't enough.

You have to accept that when duty calls, you come second. It's harsh. It's hurtful. It is hard to say but it is true. When duty calls he will go. 

You must accept that you married a person who serves. You must accept that you married a soldier. Who will leave you. Who will ask more of you than what is asked of most. Who will not be there for your hardest of days, for your loneliest of nights. Who will ask you to keep a family thriving while he leaves you behind. Who will expect you to honor the vows, to keep your promise, while he keeps the vow he first made to the nation. 

You must accept that you married a man who cannot always hold your hand. Who cannot always give you the answers you want to hear or the place to live you want to live. 

You married a man who can never turn off his job. Who can never stop the call from coming down. Who at times will have to tell you, "I can't be there." 

The moment you accept that he can say these things, that he can leave you, that he can put someone "else" first, and at the exact same time he is still loving you, and honoring you, and protecting you is the moment that you understand, that you are truly open to the remarkable journey. 

Our society continuously tells us to put ourselves first, to do what makes things easiest for us, for me, me, me. You belong to the one percent that chooses to put everyone else above themselves. Who values everyone else's freedoms and liberties above their own. To sacrifice the luxury of time together, and comfort, and ease so that others may keep it.

You have been called to serve the nation beside your soldier. To love him, to honor him, to support his mission. You serve by accepting the life, by finding the joy, and by thriving along the journey. 

Understand the reality you are facing - a terrifying, harsh, difficult calling - and accept that you have been called.

There is so much joy in knowing that you are fully capable of beating any odds stacked against you. You are fully capable of thriving through, of loving through.  

Acceptance is key and you are ready.

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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.

Bloom Where You are Planted

I think that every military family can feel the tension, the worry encompassing the military community right now. To ignore it just isn't possible (believe me, I've tried). We are all on edge. We are all wondering what the many changes being implemented will do to our family, to our soldier. Everyone is sitting tight. 

Waiting.

And in the middle of it all, our soldiers are still training. Our soldiers are still deploying. Our soldiers are still giving legs and arms and lives.

War doesn't wait.

I have had great difficulty sitting down to write. I have struggled over information about the lessening numbers - how they will affect C's particular branch, how this may affect him. I have struggled over how very real all of this is to Us and how non-existent it is to the rest of our country. 

We see it daily. We are living the worry and the hesitation daily. We understand.

All of it has been eating me up inside. While C is in the field again. While Logan keeps asking when his daddy is coming back from camping with his soldiers again. While I watch them sleep, and hang his uniforms, and wonder what will we do if this stops being our life.

I have not been able to shut off my mind. I have worried and worried and worried.

I see it in the faces of the soldiers. I hear it from our spouses. Hushed whispers, some not-so-hushed. Questions I can't answer. Fear that I cannot calm. People are worried. 

A reader emailed once telling me how good of an "Army Mom" I was to her and I laughed out loud. But I understood the term. When I was at my lowest in some time, I called my "Army Mom" and poured out my heart. She listened. She let me cry and vent and share my fear. 

These are the moments that she would usually turn to humor. We are similar in that way. Sometimes you just need to laugh through the rough spots but this particular call was not the time for that. She said, "Megan. (breath) You are a woman of deep faith. Do not let that be shaken now. He will put you where you need to be - wherever that is."

The message was firm. Strong.

Do not let your faith be shaken.

I know so many of us are beaten down. That we feel forgotten, abused, thrown-away. I know that we are angry and tired and maybe even in disbelief at what is happening. 

But it is happening.

Our lifestyle is changing. Our paths are changing.

This is not a time to lose our resolve. This is not the time for me to crumble and beg for answers. He has never failed me while I have failed Him again and again. He has never led me to where I am not meant to be. He has never let me take a step alone. He has never taken me where He did not walk beside.

The road ahead is uncertain. The future is never promised. 

But His promise to bring us through is certain. His Grace will always rain down.

It is taking every part of me to let my human worry go. To live in the today, the right now. C is working each day as if there is no worry, the same way he always has. He is fulfilling the promise he made fourteen years ago - to serve as long as his country will allow him. None of that has changed. I have been humbled by his unwavering commitment, shrunken by his will to work just as hard for his men, for his nation.

Do not let your faith be shaken.

Bloom where you are planted. Every day, wherever that may be.