Overflowing with Hope

In about 6 months, it's almost certain we will be leaving the Washington, DC area for our first permanent military stationing.  Recently, a friend told me she found it somewhat odd how "ok" I was with this.  Wasn't I going to miss friends?  My job?  Living in our nation's capital?  I was a little surprised to hear these questions.... Of course I was going to miss all these things!  But she was right, I am not just ok with the upcoming move, I'm excited for it... and I know I show it.

This got me thinking... is the excitement and anticipation I express being mistaken as apathy toward the friendships I have built here?  And if so, how do I explain the peace that I feel about the move in spite of having to leave so many people I love?

When I moved to DC, I knew without a doubt that it was the place God wanted me to go.  In the year leading up to the move, other doors I had tried to walk through had been slammed shut.  But things for moving to DC fell perfectly into place and each time I came to DC in preparation to move I fell more and more in love with the city.  I sensed God's direction more than I ever had in my life.  And thank goodness for His perfect will, because in DC I had a great grad school experience, met my husband, am part of great church, started my career and have built some wonderful friendships.

Since that time, I have really struggled with understanding where God was taking me.  I didn't feel any direction on where I should take my career, other things I should get involved in, my role within our church, if we should move elsewhere, etc.  I was frustrated because I felt that God was no longer giving me dreams or desires or guidance.

Over the last 6 months that has changed.  I feel God's guidance and direction more than I have in the last 5 years since making the decision to move to DC.  I see His hand on my husband's career in an apparent way and I feel Him pulling us both more and more toward being involved in and serving the military community.  He has given me new dreams and goals for my career, for roles we can have within His church, and for ways we can strive to bless others.

Romans 15:13 says "May the God of hope fill you with joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit."  Right now, I am trusting in Him.  With this new direction He is sending us in, there are going to be a lot of struggles... and probably one of the biggest forceable struggles is going to be leaving the community we have built here in DC.  But with each day that I chose to trust in His guidance, I am filled more and more with joy and peace... and I am overflowing with hope for the future.  I can't wait to see what He has up His sleeve for us!

I look forward to these final 6 months in the Capital.  I hope they will be filled with laughter and joy and growing deeper in friendships.  Wherever we head to next, two things will be certain:
1. I will miss all of you in DC greatly.
And 2. God's will is perfect and I believe He will continue to bless our friendships no matter what the distance.

90 days with your husband away

It's been 88 days since Chris left for OCS and in just 2 more days I head to Rhode Island to bring him home with me!  These 90 days have been both challenging and rewarding.  I have learned a lot about myself, about the strength of our relationship, and about the peace only God can provide.

A number of people have asked how I made it through 3 months without having a mental breakdown... so I thought I'd share a few tricks I discovered.  Hopefully they'll help you if you're in a similar situation with your loved one... whether he/she is away for a few days or a number of months!

Steps to Surviving 90 days with your husband away:

Step 1: Always remember that the peace of God transcends all understanding.  There is nothing that we can do alone as humans to have this type of peace.

Step 2: Making lists
A few weeks before Chris left I starting making two lists.  First was a list of goals for while he was away.  It gave me something to be excited about.  I couldn't wait to get started on my list and show him all I accomplished while he was gone!

Goals:
-Make flower pots for the balcony (Completed!)
-Start a blog (Completed!)
-Catch up on scrapbooking (not completed...)
-Be able to run 7 miles (not completed... up to 5 only)
-Complete all my required continuing medical education (not even close to completed...)
-Mail cards to any friends with birthdays (I think I've been pretty good about... but think I may have missed a few :-/ )
-Read 5 books (only read 3...)
-Finish decorating apartment (nope, not done...)
-Stop biting my finger nails (I actually did this... and then got stressed when stuck in traffic driving to Newport last weekend... back to square one)

The second list was one of things to do when bored and missing Chris:
-Go for a walk or run
-Go swimming
-Play with PJ (my cat)
-Call a long distant friend to catch up
-Paint nails
-Practice the piano
-Scrapbook
-Read a book
-Write a letter to Chris

These aren't my full lists, but you may have noticed something... I did a terrible job actually completing everything on my goals list.  But guess what!  That's ok!  I didn't compete everything because I had such wonderful friends and family who came up around me and kept me busy having fun that I didn't have time to do everything!  The important thing was having the lists and knowing that any time I was bored and missing Chris, I had goals to accomplish and things to do to keep busy and distract my mind from missing him.

Step 3: Pack your schedule!
I've always liked to use a calendar but this became even more important with Chris away.  Each week I would look ahead at my week, get in touch with friends, and schedule as many things to do as I could fit in!  Not only did this help to ensure that I kept busy, but it also gave me excitement when I could look ahead on my calendar and see the fun things I had coming up.

Step 4: Allow yourself occasional wallowing time
Every once in a while you just have to wallow... but with a limit.  As soon as Chris pulled away, all I really felt like doing was throwing away all my lists of goals and things to do and just wallow for 3 months.  Instead I told myself I could have 2 hours.  I sat and watched a sad movie and cried my little eyes out for those 2 hours and then I forced myself to get up and move on with things.  There were a few times I had to repeat this over the last 3 months... more often at first and then lessening as time went on.

Step 5: Write letters
As soon as Chris left I started writing letters.  Every time I wrote it helped me feel close to him.  I knew that I would like writing/receiving letters, but the impact that it had was much more significant that I ever could have imagined it would be.  It impossible to really describe... just do it and you'll understand!

Step 6: Travel or have visitors
Traveling and having visitors helped me during this time so much.  My mom came out to visit for 6 days and I also traveled to Wisconsin for a wedding/to visit friends for another 6 days.  Keeping busy in this way is priceless.

Step 7: Have a pet
We got PJ about a month before Chris left.  I can't even begin to explain what a blessing this kitten has been to me.  He has been my companion when home alone, the one I say hi to when I walk through the door, and the one who awakens me with love and cuddles.  With risk of sounding like a crazy cat lady, I don't think I would have survived this time anywhere near as successfully with him!!

With these steps and the immense love and support from my friends and family I have made it through!! Now don't get me wrong, I still dread the thought of 6 or 9 month deployments... but these 3 months have given me confidence that I will be able to make it through those time periods just as I made it through this one!

Love him like Jesus does

I've been meaning to write another post for awhile but I couldn't decide what to write about.  I felt silly writing two post in a row that are based on a song so have been trying to come up with something else to write about... but this is what has been on my heart for the last month so I'm giving in and writing about it!

Every time I hear this song it bring tears to my eyes.  I'm always kind of a sucker for country music and the stories they tell, but this song in particular gets to me.  Because here's the thing: more than anything, I want to love my husband like Jesus does.  

This summer has already brought a number of weddings.  As I sit and watch couples start their lives together I can't help but think a lot about our wedding and how far we have come in our marriage since then.  We are still in the early stages of marriage and we are definitely not experts in marriage, but there is so much we have learned over the last 1 year and 8 months.  There have been a lot of ups and downs, especially in that first year, but I wouldn't trade it for anything now because the lessons learned were priceless.  

And what was the number one lesson?  Learning a little more every day what it means to love someone like Jesus.  My prayer is that each day for the rest of our lives together, the Lord teach me how to love more and more like He does.  And if someday my husband is able to say about me the things that Eric Church says in this song, it will be my greatest success! 

Walk by Faith

I am a planner to the max.  From a very young age, I started planning my life.  I had planned out college, my major, my career, when I would get married, when I would have children, where I would live, etc.  Of course, my plans changed numerous times along the way, but I always felt security in having an idea of what was to come in my life.  

There are a few specific times that I can remember realizing that my plans weren't working out, and that I had no idea what my new plan would be... from there anxiety and panic would ensue.  The first instance that really stands out to me was when I was college.  I was majoring in Athletic Training with a plan to go on to Physical Therapy school... following the plan I had set in place while in high school. Fairly early on in my freshman year, I started to realize that perhaps AT/PT was not for me.  But I had no idea what I wanted to do!  I continued on in my classes, all the while desperately searching for a new plan.  Anxiety and panic attacks riddled me and would often leave me unable to go to class or participate in other activities I was involved in.  I went to counseling, took anxiolytic medications, talked things over with my family and friends but nothing, I felt, would completely relieve my anxiety aside from finding a new career plan.  After months of struggling, I finally discovered the Physician Assistant profession and developed a new dream... with this new plan in place, my anxieties and panic attacks finally resolved. 

A second and last example (I promise I'll get to my point soon) took place a few years later.  I was now a junior in college and preparing to apply to PA schools.  It was thrilling for me!  I had worked hard the past 3 years and was excited to move on to the next step of my plan.  Back when I had decided to become a Physician Assistant, it had not been enough for me to just know what I wanted to do, I needed to have a plan for where I would go to school to do it.  And my answer was Duke.  Duke was the first school to have a Physician Assistant program and was ranked #1 by US News and World Report.  I just had to go there (or so I thought).  I made plans to travel to Duke for a PA program open house where I thought I would explore the school and suck up to the PA faculty in attempt to better my chances of getting accepted.  Little did I know, the realizations I would have over those few days at Duke would completely and utterly change the coarse of my life.  In a nutshell, I hated it.  This is no offense to Duke or the city of Durham, but it was just not for me and I knew it almost immediately.  But now what??  Duke had been my dream for the last 3 years... if it wasn't right for me, what school was?  Once again, anxiety started to overtake me.  The next few months of searching eventually led me to sitting in the George Washington University Hospital cafeteria calling my mom to tell her that I had found the school I wanted to go to.  I was so excited to have a new plan and was prepared to do whatever I could to make it happen!  

Military life is not great for planners.  I have no idea where we'll be living 9 months from now, where I'll be working, if Chris will be home with me or deployed, or who my friends will be (will I even have friends??).  The thought of this is both exhilarating and terrifying to me.  I like the idea of the adventure it will be, but fear the unknowns.  And I used to think, "how crazy are we to put the course of our lives into the hands of the military??"   

One of my favorite songs has always been "Walk by Faith" by Jeremy Camp.  Over the past few weeks as I've been thinking more and more about the changes, challenges and unknowns to come in the next few years, this song has continued to resinate in my head and my heart.  Then it hit me.  We don't know what the next few years are going to bring for us. The Navy doesn't know what the next few years are going to bring for us.  At this point, they along with us don't know where we'll be 9 months from now.  There's only One who does.  And He is calling me to "walk by faith."  "Even when I cannot see" what the future is going to bring and feel that I have no plan in action, He does.  

I'm excited to see what the Lords plan brings.  One of my favorite lines in the song is "Because this broken road, Prepares Your will for me."  Boy is this true.  All those years that I was struggling with developing and fulfilling my own plan for myself and feeling at times like I was walking a broken road, He was preparing me for His will.  It's so easy to look back and see that now.  If I had become a Physical Therapist or gone to Duke (following the plans I had originally created for myself) I would never have come to DC for PA school.  If I hadn't come to DC for PA school, I wouldn't have met my wonderful husband.  If I hadn't met my wonderful husband, I wouldn't have become a Navy wife.  And someday... I know I will add on to the list "if I hadn't become a Navy wife, I wouldn't ___________________."  I'll let God fill in the blank.  

I will forever be a planner.  It's in my nature.  But now my plan for my life is simple: Walk by Faith.  



There's something about letters...

There's something special about letters.

I never really got to know my grandparents on my mom's side.  My grandfather had died before I was born, and my grandmother died when I was only about 4 years old.  When I was in high school, it really started to hit me that despite the countless stories I had heard about my grandparents, I would never really be able to know them.  This broke my heart.  I remember talking to my mom about this, asking her for more stories, more glimpses into who they were.  Then she walked into her closet and pulled out a box.

When I opened the box, I was amazed.  There were hundreds of letters from my Grandfather to my Grandmother from during times when they were apart from each other.  For weeks, I worked through reading the letters.  Documented forever on those little pieces of paper was the personalities of my grandparents and the love that they had for each other.  My grandmother had saved every letter, and I know that my mom and her siblings cherish having this reminder of their parents even more than I cherish the chance to gain insight into their lives.  I hope to someday show these letters to my children, that they may too be able to learn more about their Great-Grandparents.

Yesterday, I received my first letters from Chris while at OCS.  I don't think I can even begin to explain how special they are to me.  It's difficult being away from the ones you love, but I truly think that having these little letters as timeless documentation of this adventure we are on and our love we have for each other is priceless.  These letters will forever be one of my most treasured possessions.  I hope that someday my children and grandchildren will be able to read these letters and cherish them as much as my mom and I cherish those letters from my grandparents.  

In this time of forever expanding technology and instantaneous communication, I think we often take for granted the ability we have to talk to our loved ones whenever we want.  We forget that this life is short, and so quickly discard our text messages, e-mails, and facebook posts from our loved ones.  It's sad to me that these little treasures of communication just get "lost in space" never to be seen again.

So I guess what I'm saying is, write more letters.  Even if you're not away from your loved one, every once in awhile take a few minutes to sit down and write a letter that will act as a timeless documentation of your love, friendships, and personalities.  Or perhaps, think twice before deleting your e-mails.  Maybe take an extra second to push print and make a box of these treasured conversations.  The blessing it may bring both to yourself and to your loved ones is worth it!

And lastly, thank your mailman. :)

"I got in"

"I got in."  I was standing in the gym (having just gotten off the treadmill at the urging of Chris) when I heard these words.  A rush of excitement and anticipation came over me...  my husband was going to be a Naval Officer.  Over the next few hours, I began to think about how we had gotten to this place where I never would have imagined myself being.

When I first met Chris he had no intention of going into the military.  At one point about a year after we started dating, he brought it up as a career possibility and thus became a witness to my immediate response of essentially "over my dead body!"  After that day, we never really talked about it until we were married.  From there, it all started with people telling Chris things like "you seem like the kind of person who would be perfect for Officer Candidate School!" (To which I kept thinking, what are these people trying to do to me???)  The fear of military life started to build in me and often consumed my mind.

One day, my worst fear came true and Chris told me he wanted to apply to Navy OCS.  I cried and begged him not to do it, but he was convinced it was the right path for him.  Over the next nine months of the application process we talked about it very little.  Many people kept telling me things like "Don't worry, OCS is very competitive, he probably won't even get in!" or "Don't worry, he has screws in his knee, that will disqualify him!"  I convinced myself that these people must be right and that if Chris wanted to "waste his time" with the application process, so be it! (Yeah, I was such I wonderful supportive wife, huh? Yikes...)

As things progressed with Chris' application I began to wonder what if he just maybe, just maybe, got in?  I would push the thought out of my mind as I would be overcome with anxiety.  The idea of him going away for training scared me.  The idea of frequent moves scared me.  The idea of deployments scared me.  The idea of not knowing if he would be safe REALLY scared me.  And the idea of taking care of our future children while he could be away for extended periods of time scared me. (Just to name a few).

But my fears didn't seem to stop things from moving forward.  In fact, everything with his application was going great!  My last hope really seemed to be the screws in his knee that he had from an injury while in High School.  And then he got a waver.  Chris was as shocked as I was, praising the Lord for what he said could only be a miracle.  Again, I was filled with fear, and for the first time I was convinced my worst fears might be becoming a reality.  That night as I laid in bed, I prayed that God would change my heart.  I told Him that if this was His calling for Chris, I needed Him to take away my fears and anxieties and replace them with not only acceptance but excitement and purpose.

Over the next few weeks the Lord took a hold of my life and my heart in a inexplicable way.  I had developed bitterness and resentment toward Chris for leading me down this path, but that was washed away and replaced with joy and pride in what he had accomplished.  My anxieties were replaced with excitement.  And my fears were stomped out by feelings of purpose for not only Chris but myself and our marriage.  I was filled with a "peace that transcends all understanding." (Philippeans 4:7)

Over those weeks of transformation, I couldn't help but think back to my fears and anxieties and contemplate why I had them.  Something that kept crossing my mind was how my heart has always broken for military families, even when I had no real connection to them.  In many other areas of life, I have an innate ability to step back from situations and remove myself emotionally.  I could look at something and think how sad it was, but stop myself from taking on that sadness.  In some ways I think that sounds horrible, but this trate is something that has enabled me to help people in my career in critical care while not being completely burnt out emotionally. However, one thing that I have never been able to emotionally disconnect myself from is the pain that families of military members must feel while their loved ones are away fighting for our country... or giving their lives for our country.

My whole life I have heard and believed that the Lord calls us to the things that break our hearts.  Perhaps the Lord had created in me this great sympathy for the struggles of those in the military community for a specific purpose.  As my husband completed the OCS application process, got accepted, and prepared for his departure, I was filled with excitement as I thought about building community with and helping support other military families.

So here I am.  Only one week into life as a military wife.  At this point I still have so much to learn about supporting my husband, living life as a "MilSpouse", and becoming part of the military community.  I questioned whether or not I should start this blog now or later... but I felt an urging to start it now and came to the conclusion that by beginning at the very start and documenting my experiences and learnings along the way, the Lord may be able to use my experiences to encourage and support others in similar situations.

I hope and pray that this blog can be a place that you can find encouragement, hope, and support no matter what your situation.  If you are a fellow MilSpouse, I hope we can build community and learn together about this adventure that we are on.  I greatly appreciate your comments as I don't view this as a place for me to just pour out my thoughts, but somewhere we can have dialogue, friendships and support each other.

God Bless!