Playground Preacher

I figure that my darling daughter, Lila deserves her own post as we move into this deployment.  So many days she is my light in the gray, miserable, Washington rain.  She is also the biggest help I could ever ask for with her two younger brothers and I probably don't tell her nearly often enough how proud of her I am. She also astounds me at times.  I remember once upon a time, my friend Millie told me that I had an "old soul."  That's what I see with Lila. She is wise beyond her years.  Sometimes her faith and belief astound me, with both its intensity and purity.

Last spring, during a couple week period of multiple road trips, Lila read her Story Bible from cover to cover on her own. Not only did she read it, but she comprehended and absorbed it and afterwards would correct you if you said something that was wrong. Shortly after she did that my neighbor approached me and told me that her son had been coming home and asking lots of questions about God and Jesus.  She said that when she asked him where he was hearing this stuff from, he told her Lila.  Apparently she was on the playground telling everyone all about God and Jesus and the stories she knew from the Bible. At the time, I didn't really know a lot about their religious background, but did know that they didn't go to church at all.  I felt super-uncomfortable and told her that I hoped Lila hadn't started a conversation that she didn't really want to discuss, which afterwards I did think, "Why am I apologizing?", but you know, it was just a weird situation.  Well, it was really great, because she actually said that no she didn't have an issue with it at all and was glad that he was asking questions as they didn't really discuss it before. However, from that point on, Lila was dubbed the "Playground Preacher." We still call her that on occasion.  She has on multiple occasions complained about not being able to talk about the Bible at school and has even asked to go to a Christian School.  Hopefully, we will be able to make that happen in the next few years.

Since that time, Lila has kept reading the Bible, moving to progressively more difficult story versions and now her ICB version.  We have never forced her to read it, but just seems to crave it. There is such an amazing purity in her love of God, even in her prayer.   Sometimes, the things she prays for even catches me completely off guard.  With Cory being deployed, our prayers have started including prayers for his safety and health as well as all his soldiers.  She prays nightly for the families of the soldiers to have faith and not be scared. Those things I fully expected she would add to her nightly prayers, but the thing that caught me off guard was the first night when in her sweet little voice she said, "And please help the bad guys get right with you Lord and change their ways."  Took.  My.  Breath. Away. I do love that sweet, precious child.

When Christians Question Christians

I have been debating writing this post all afternoon after a conversation/debate with a friend via Facebook left me feeling very out of sorts, disturbed would be the best way to put it I guess, maybe even a little hurt.  Now, I will say I should never have even gotten started in the conversation in question to begin with and should have known better.  Please do know as you read this, I mean no disrespect to the other person involved in this conversation at all, but I think the direction the conversation went is a testament to some of the situations I sometimes find myself in as a Christian who doesn’t always follow along with the mainstream.

I have a friend (well lots of friend actually) who have varying beliefs about homosexuality and specifically gay marriage. It is no secret that I fully support gay marriage.  I make no secret of it and often find myself in heated conversations about it. Well, today, I once again opened my big fat mouth in response to a Facebook post.  I just couldn’t help myself.  I have had debates with this friend before and they have gotten rather heated in the past.  However, we have always remained friends and just agreed to disagree.  We’ve actually had conversations about the benefit of having friends who challenge you. I thought today was just the same.  Our debate included conversations about the constitution, freedom of religion, civil rights and pretty much the same as our previous conversations when the conversation took a turn I never saw coming.  I was told, “…. I just wish you took God's word as literally as you do the constitution...”  Ummm, wow.  It completely 100% caught me off guard.  My immediate thought was, “Ouch.  How dare she question my faith?”  When I told her pretty much exactly that, the response I got was that she had every right to question me and that when I professed to be a Christian but don’t support His laws my faith is called into question.  I did and still do 100% feel that calling someone into question like that, especially when it comes to their beliefs and faith is wrong, especially when I don’t feel like it doesn’t come from a place of concern about my well-being as a Christian, but from anger/discontent over different beliefs. I felt like I was basically getting told I was a bad Christian, if there even is such a thing.  Now, I am not saying that is how it was intended, but definitely the way it felt.

I know that some think we should take the Bible literally as it is written and a lot of people say there is no room for interpretation.  My question to that is then how the heck is it that we have so many denominations of Christianity, all with varying beliefs?  I’m a Methodist and we believe in infant baptism and have the scripture to back it up.  However, Baptists believe in full-submersion Baptism when you are ready to publicly commit to Christ.  They also have scripture to back up their belief.  Catholics has very different beliefs from Protestants.  We’re all Christians, though, right? If the leaders of the varying denominations have different interpretations of the Bible and they can’t come to a consensus and they are experts on the topic, then how is it that there isn’t room for interpretation? And why do we all have to be so caught up with being right? I mean if we as Christians feel the need to attack each others beliefs and call each other wrong, then what does that really say about us?  And how can we really impact the world if we are too busy arguing among ourselves to really help? I think healthy debate and discussion is a good thing, but not when it means we have to question whether you are a true Christian because you have varying opinions.

I guess as a Christian this is my thing.  You hear all the time about there being less Christians today.  I don’t even know if the statistics are correct, but I do know that I see a lot of people that automatically make judgments about me when they find out I am a Christian because of what they see on TV.   “Oh, you’re one of those church people.” I think as Christians one of the biggest things we can do is bring other people to Christianity. For me, I want people to look at me, the life I lead, the kind of person I am, my lack of judgment and disdain for those that feel differently than me and think, “Wow, she’s pretty cool.  If that’s what a Christian is then maybe I ought to find out what it is all about.”  I think that’s how I bring other to Christ. I don’t claim to be an expert.  I don’t claim to have all the answers or be the perfect Christian.  I don’t claim that my beliefs about certain subjects are the “right” ones, but they are mine and those beliefs are the things that help me sleep at night knowing that I am the kind of person I want to be. 

Message to my Fellow Military Wives

I know there are a lot of us with deployed spouses right now.  Some of us have husbands who have left in the past few months, some in the past few days and some that are leaving very soon.  For some of us, it is just another in a long list of deployments while for others it is our first.  Some of us are new wives, fiancees or girlfriends while others have been married for what may seem like forever.  Some of us work, some of us stay at home, some are new mothers, some have more kids than they can keep up with (that would be me most days). No matter what our differences, there is one thing we all have in common.  We love a soldier.  We will spend the time our soldiers are away keeping the home fires burning and worried about their safety.  Many of us will spend many hours on bended knee praying for their safety and many times our own sanity. We will be lonely.  We will miss them.  We will be scared at times.  We will worry about our soldier's safety and mental health. If we are parents, we will worry about how the separation will impact our children.  We will worry about how the separation will impact our relationship. We will face down Murphy who will rear his ugly head at the most inopportune times.  Deployments can be very scary and as I have often said, sometimes they just SUCK! There is no way around that part. 

I want to focus instead on some of the things that are fantastic about deployments.  Deployments are an awesome opportunity for self-discovery. You will learn so much about yourself as you face the months without your spouse. You may feel weak and scared to begin with but at the end of this journey you will have great pride in your strength and a new found confidence in what you can handle on your own. If you don't already, you will learn that you can do things like check your own oil, figure out what is wrong with a broken washing machine or fix that squeaky stair.  You will find that you are capable of so much more than you give yourself credit for and while the journey may not always be perfect, the rewards will be great. 

Deployments have taught me to learn to ask for help, something that is hard for me.  Hopefully, you will learn to ask for help, too.  It is okay to admit that you can't always do it all and learning to ask for help from others when you need it can be life changing.  Suddenly you realize, it isn't you doing it all on your own.  You have a whole group of people around you who are willing to help if you just ask.  

The other wonderful thing about deployments is the fantastic friendships you will make.  There is nothing like the friendships you will make with other women going through the exact same thing. There is a shared experience that you don't find outside of the military and some of those friendships will last forever. Some of my best friendships in life were made during the WORST deployments.  There is just an unbreakable bond there. When you are feeling down or like you just can't handle it, a good friend is usually just the thing you need. They will commiserate with you, help you when you need a hand, cry with you and at times, be the one to tell you to suck it up and put on your big girl panties.  If you haven't made friends with your fellow spouses, yet, do it NOW!  This it the single most important piece of deployment advice I can give you. 

There is a quote from a Sherrilyn Kenyon book that says, "The strongest steel is forged by the fires of hell. It is pounded and struck repeatedly before it’s plunged back into the molten fire. The fire gives it power and flexibility, and the blows give it strength. Those two things make the metal pliable and able to withstand every battle it’s called upon to fight."  Just remember as you face this deployment that every struggle makes us stronger and more prepared to deal with the next adversity.  You will come out on the other side a stronger person who feels like they can take on so more than you do right now.

Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder?

With the current deployment just starting, I am reflecting a lot on the hubby's past deployments and our marriage.  To some, the picture above may seem counter intuitive.  I mean seriously, who could possibly think that separation could be good for a marriage? Well, in all seriousness, Cory and I used to feel this way and to some extent it still holds true. Prior to our 7th Anniversary, he had already been deployed 4 times for a total of about 40 months.  That isn't counting the numerous field problems and trips to the National Training Center.  We pretty much spent that time as newlyweds as we never spent more than about 18-months together at one time.  We got to experience the honey moon phase over and over.  Of course, we also got to experience that first difficult couple of years as a married couple over and over again. I do have to say that when you don't get to be with your spouse all the time, you definitely learn to not take them for granted.  You learn to appreciate them more.  As a matter of fact, when we found out my husband was actually going to be home for a while we joked that we weren't sure how much we would even like each other if we had to live together that long with no field problems or deployments.  Well, prior to this deployment we were blessed with being able to spend 4 years straight together with no deployments, the most time we have ever been together in our 11 year marriage. The good news is we survived with our relationship quite intact and stronger than ever.  The not so good news is that we kinda got spoiled by all that time together. 

Today marks the beginning of our 5th deployment together.  Saying good-bye to my husband was as difficult as always. Of course, today was a very different sadness than in the past.  I found myself not nearly as sad for myself and a whole lot more sad for my husband and kids. Maybe it is just age or the fact that I have done this so many times before but I am full confident in my ability to handle it.  Don't get me wrong, I am sad and I will miss my husband something dreadful and worry about him, but I know with the support of my family, friends and most of all my faith, I've got this.  However, I am so very sad for my husband and what I know he'll miss and have to endure.  That part SUCKS for lack of a more eloquent way to say it.

So, I don't know if I agree if absence makes the heart grow fonder and no, I don't thank our happy marriage on deployments and training.  Our happy marriage is due to love, faith, compromise, hard-work, perseverance and just plain stubbornness sometimes. However, the trials we face with separations do add a different deeper appreciation to the time we have together.  How I look forward to that time together at the end of this separation...