Way down yonder on the Chattahoochee...

I never in my wildest dreams ever thought that I could ever use the phrase "Way down yonder on the Chattahoochee" to be able to describe where I lived. Alas, here I am! I actually think I did a country line dance to this song in gym class during high school. hm...

My dad and I drove over the past 2 days from Connecticut back down to Georgia where I dropped him off at the Atlanta airport before continuing South. It was really nice to be able to get in some quality time with my dad. We have the same sense of humor so it was pretty easy going back and forth about the fact that he can't focus on the road and always needs to look at airplanes, birds, cows, or whatever else is not actually the road in front of him. The ladies (dogs) were surprisingly well-behaved minus barking at every single toll attendant we passed.

they also don't take photos well.

I made it home about 3:30 and my first order of business was unpacking the Keurig coffee maker my Aunt got me for my bridal shower.

Yaaaayyyy Coffeeeeee!

Then I sat down. It was actually pretty weird being alone again after basically going non-stop for 2 weeks and always having people around. I've gotten pretty good at being one of two ways lately, I have either been a basket case that cries over anything or I have been completely emotionally checked out. I'm a pretty emotional person normally (I blame my Dad and Nanny) so if you add the wedding and Brendan being gone into the mix things get a little more complicated. I just felt that when I was at home that so many people around me were stressed and under pressure that it was a lot easier for me to just not deal with my emotions at that point.

When I sat down, I re-read the letters that Brendan had sent me when I was at my parents, and took some time to reflect on life right now and just let myself feel. My emotions were just so heavy. By the end of this week, most of the friends I have made down here will be gone and moving on to their next Duty Station and I will have heard from Brendan on whether or not he has passed from the mountains phase of Ranger School into the swamp phase. I feel like life is happening so fast and slow at the same time.

A lot of my friends down here have used the term "seasons" to describe periods of time in our lives. I think I'm just starting to get that expression now:

 For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:

 a time to be born, and a time to die;

 a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;

 a time to kill, and a time to heal;

 a time to break down, and a time to build up;

 a time to weep, and a time to laugh;

 a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

 a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;

 a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

 a time to seek, and a time to lose;

 a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

 a time to tear, and a time to sew;

 a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

 a time to love, and a time to hate;

 a time for war, and a time for peace.

(Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 ESV)

I think that this season is coming to a close, and reflecting back, I have been broken down and built up, I have cried, laughed, learned and most of all I have sought a relationship with God where in all honesty I didn't have one before. At the end of this season, I will be thankful for the friends I have made and for the love that they gave to me by sharing the Truth. I feel like I am finally standing on solid ground. I will be grateful for Brendan to come home and for us to have a firm foundation to build a wonderful life and a beautiful marriage on, knowing that we can endure all seasons by making our relationship what God designed it to be.

I have been reading a book by John Piper called This Momentary Marriage and in the conclusion he states this:

"But if we set our face to make of marriage mainly what God designed it to be, no sorrows and no calamities can stand in our way. Every one of them will be, not an obstacle to success, but a way to succeed. The beauty of the covenant-keeping love between Christ and his church shines brightest when nothing but Christ can sustain it."

If you had asked me 6 months ago what I thought about this, I would have rolled my eyes and laughed. Now I read this and am filled with hope. My marriage with Brendan should be so filled with love that nothing will break it. How amazing is that? And more amazing than that, how amazing is it that this is just a foreshadowing of the love that God has for us?

I need to start sitting down more often.

Please Mr. Postman...

There is this song that was written in the '60's called Please Mr. Postman by the Marvelettes... I've never heard of them either, but this song has been stuck in my head all day as I keep checking outside to see if the mailman came. My friend Hunter and I once compared ourselves to dogs waiting to chase the postman. After 154 days of wonderful Ranger School, I can attest to the fact that I do indeed check the mail at least 3 times a day. Luckily I have not bitten or barked at any mailman... yet.

I'm having one of those weird days where my imagination is going crazy. I put a letter in the mailbox to Brendan so I put the little red flag up and have been creeping around my parents house looking out of windows to see if the flag is down yet. I actually spent a few minutes earlier imagining that I was in the Revolutionary War waiting to see a courier on a horse come down the street with mail from my long lost love... don't say anything I already know I'm having delusions.

I'm stressing out because today is my last day in Connecticut and since I leave to go back to Georgia tomorrow and have been worrying whether or not Brendan and I figured out the timing properly to ensure that his letters get to the right address. Minor problems magnified by my mind.

Most days, I try to just stay busy until it's after the time which the mailman would come in order to seem less crazy and to feel independent, but today time was standing still. To occupy myself, I went swimming with Abigail... my dog. She is actually pretty fast which is deceptive because she has short little legs.

News Flash: The mail came, I got my letter and we did it right! The rest of my letters will go to Columbus. Brendan seems to be doing well, he is tired and ready for this to be over as am I. Lord willing, he will be home in less than a month. I pray every day for the Lord to give him strength to persevere, and for Him to give me the right words to encourage him. One of the most challenging things about this is continuing to find words of encouragment and love. The first few months weren't too hard, but now I worry about being repetitive.

I was listening to a Christian radio station this morning as I was driving and came across a song I hadn't heard before called Everlasting God by Lincoln Brewster and at the end of the song I was brought to tears (surprise) by the sound of a little child reading Isaiah 40:28-31 which says:

The Lord is the everlasting God,

the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary;
his understanding is unsearchable.
²⁹ He gives power to the faint,
and to him who has no might he increases strength.
³⁰ Even youths shall faint and be weary,
and young men shall fall exhausted;
³¹ but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength;
they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary;
they shall walk and not faint.
Isaiah 40:28-31 (ESV)

I am always amazed by how during this journey, God always picks me up and carries me in my moments of weakness. Suddenly there are comfort in tears instead of weakness. It's like a blanket of hope that comforts me and reminds me to put my faith in Him and not in these momentary hardships.

STOP THE PITY PARTY!!!!

If you see me crying... ignore it.. REALLY.

So the past few weeks, I've been back home in Connecticut for my bridal shower and to begin re-planning our wedding since Brendan would have missed our first wedding date. It's been an emotional experience mainly because I have basically been planning everything alone for the past 5 months without having Brendan to bounce ideas off of. I wasn't expecting him to be gone this long so it's been pretty difficult because Brendan is the calmer one of the two of us and I'm the crazy irrational one.

About 3 times in the past two weeks people have asked me in SUPER EXCITED voices how excited I am about this wedding. My response has basically been the same every time which is: "I would just like to have Brendan home first, it's hard to be excited about anything when he's not here." Then I start crying at which point I would appreciate a hole to crawl into until I stop because it's really embarrassing. So if this happens to you with me, don't worry about doing the awkward back pat because it's weird for me too. JUST IGNORE ME!

This brings me to my next point...

Stop feeling bad for me! I don't feel bad for me!

Yes, I am aware that the situation that Brendan and I are in is less than ideal and often it actually feels terrible and sometimes I need to take 5 or 10 minutes to wallow in self pity. Then I snap out of it and realize that despite the situation I'm in, I am extremely lucky...

The love that Brendan and I share is so much more beautiful and special than this temporary situation. I love Brendan so much that sometimes I really think my head is going to explode. We have described it before as loving each other so much that it hurts. I have a man who loves me and is capable of showing me that he loves me despite not being able to see me or even able to call. He has a woman who he knows will stand by him and love him come hell, high water or 5 more months of Ranger School!

All situations are temporary! Life is temporary, the only thing that is eternal is God, and He has a plan for us. I find myself putting so much stock in temporary happiness and placing my hope in all the wrong places that when things go wrong I forget that God does ALL things for the good of His people and the happiest moments here on earth are just glimmers of the wonderful things that are to come.

How Did I Get Here?

This past year has been a tornado of events and emotions for me, I tried to abbreviate this as much as possible without leaving out any important details. That being said, if you are committed to reading this entire thing, make yourself comfortable.

How Did I Get Here?

At this time last year, I was newly engaged to the most wonderful man in the entire world and was getting ready to move out of New York City and leave my job to follow him to Columbus, Georgia where he was beginning his career as an Officer in the United States Army. I was so excited to begin our lives together that I could hardly think about anything else. So I packed up my life in New York and we set off for Georgia...

A little background on my life Pre-Georgia:
I grew up in Connecticut and was defined through most of high school and college as the girl that ran a lot... until I decided to take a "hiatus" that ended up lasting about 5 years. I moved to New York in 2009 after still licking my wounds from a failed relationship that had ended and began the process of really figuring out who I was and what was important to me. The same week I met Brendan I had landed my dream job in sales at a beautiful hotel near Central Park.

Now, I hadn't been in a serious relationship since I moved to New York and had never lived with or even considered living with a man before. Enter Brendan: we met on a train platform in Irvington, New York on January 28, 2011. He was finishing up his last year at the United States Military Academy at West Point and was captain of the triathlon team and smart and funny and honest. That first night, we just talked for hours. The next weekend he came to New York to go out on our "first official date" and asked me if I thought that we could seriously date and have a relationship. I told him I didn't know if it was a good idea because he would be graduating in the spring and I didn't want to get attached to someone who would just leave in a few months anyways. He looked me dead in the eyes and told me that he had decided to be stationed at Fort Bragg, NC instead of Fort Richardson, AK partly because he didn't think I would follow him to Alaska. At that point things changed a little bit. I had never had someone really lay all of their cards on the table like that for me before, so we started dating. It became clear pretty soon that we both were in love and he proposed about 6 months later on July 9, 2011.

Back to how I got to here...
It was such an exciting, but scary time for me. Not only was I moving away from all of my family and friends, the person I was marrying was in the Army which meant separation and not very much control over my life for the foreseeable future.

Once we settled into our apartment, I spent the next 2 months being a miserable person to deal with. I hated my job, was not interested in making friends and really had a lot of trouble seeing the bright side of anything. OH and I wasn't exercising and was eating the same as Brendan so I got fat. When I came home in December to have my first wedding dress fitting the dress didn't zip!

Luckily, by that time I had became friends with a bunch of wonderful and strong women whose husbands were in the same position as Brendan. We all loved being active and staying in shape since ironically 3 of us were collegiate athletes and after Christmas we began to get into a workout routine. Since then, I've lost 15 pounds, started running again, became a certified TRX instructor, and am working towards becoming a personal trainer. Oh.. and my wedding dress fits again so that's awesome.

At this point Brendan was just finishing up IBOLC (Infantry Basic Officer Leadership Course), a 16 week program for all new Lieutenants who will be in an Infantry unit. After IBOLC, he would head to Ranger School, (I just hyperlinked Wikepedia if youre interested on reading a little bit more about what it is) but, basically it's a 62 day(or longer) course that has been called the "toughest combat course in the world" it pushes you to your physical and mental limits... and your loved ones who are supporting you.We are only allowed to communicate via letters when he is going through the phases which has put a new dynamic into our relationship. 

Although I had heard from countless women how hard Ranger School was on them, I thought that it would be fairly easy because I was used to living on my own from when I was single...I was wrong, its completely different living on your own when you're not supposed to be living on your own and then adding the fact that you can't even speak on a regular basis... Ranger School is awful for everyone involved and will not be something I ever look back on and think "Oh, it wasn't that bad..."

 Right now, Brendan is still in Ranger School. He left February 25 (as I'm writing this it's July 17) and has recycled 3 times so far. We have had to reschedule our wedding and I have had to do a lot of growing up and soul searching. It has been a humbling and eye opening time for me. Supporting Brendan through this and every other trial we might have is more important than the perfect wedding, the perfect house or anything else that I could selfishly want for myself.

 During this time, we have been able to grow together and seperately, and probably the most important thing that has happened is that we have learned to let go of our hopes and look to God. Before we moved to Georgia, we talked about our religious views and tossed around ideas of how we wanted to live our lives in relation to those views. Looking back, a relationship with God was not important to us, we were wrapped up in our life together and only really saw Him as a personal assistant. Once we moved to Georgia, I met some wonderful Christian women. When our men were in Ranger School together, we really started having alot of meaningful conversations that really helped give me an understanding of who God really is and why having a relationship with Him is so important. I got involved with a wonderful local church and feel like a completely different person. At the same time, Brendan was in Ranger School and had just recycled for the first time and had a 6 week break between when he could re-do the next phase. He started speaking with some of the other men he was with who happened to be Christians and began doing a Bible Study with them and reading any book about Christianity he could get his hands on. While he couldn't live home during that time, we were able to speak on the phone after 5pm and he was given 12 hour passes on Saturdays and Sundays and we began going to church together. I don't know when it was, but at some point... something clicked in both of our brains and we recognized the need for us to change how we were living our lives. Simply, we needed to put our hope and trust in God and not in fading, temporary things. Putting my hope in God and his eternal faithfulness has been the only thing that has sustained me the past 6 months.

Why am I writing this blog?

Good question. I think that I'm writing it to keep in touch with our family and friends and to hopefully help people, but mostly I think I'm writing this to help myself.