Unicorns do not exist.

Okay, so I've been toying around with the idea of writing this post for a while. My friend Hunter pointed out to me about a month ago that I am slightly intolerant to people who are not realistic. Aside from the fact that something I actually have said is "Unicorns don't exist, why does everyone live in a world that they think that they do?", I think she noticed my tendencies during Brendan's time in Ranger School because I wasn't even cautiously optimistic in the few days surrounding when I would hear from him that he would be coming home soon. Some people saw this as being pessimistic or that I didn't believe in Brendan, neither of those are true, I believe in Brendan and I am generally a pretty positive person, but the bottom line was, I knew that it was the Army and anything could (and did) happen.I feel that the most important asset that a military spouse can have is realistic expectations of what your life is going to be like. This includes periods of separation, adjustments, possible injuries among loads of other things.

Since Brendan was commissioned in May 2011, we have spent our time at Fort Benning where he has been going through training. While there were still lots of periods of separation (he was gone for over half the time we were in Georgia), the training has allowed us time without the possibility of Brendan being deployed which gave me peace of mind.With Brendan and I getting ready to leave Fort Benning and head to a deploy-able unit, I have begun to realize that having a realistic view of what awaits us in the future will be even more important than it was before.

 

The Pink Elephants in The Room

There's something I have started referring to as the "Forbidden D's" because there is never a good time to discuss them, but they seem to always sit in the corner of the room with us like a big pink elephant neither one of us wants to acknowledge. These two words are Deployment and Death.

Let's start out with the less heavy word: Deployment. We no longer live in a time where it would be realistic to assume that Brendan won't be deployed at some point without a high possibility of being completely crushed. As it stands right now, in December Brendan's unit will assume a role which will put them on stand-by for rapid deployment with as little as 2 hours notice. He tells me that he feels it's not likely that he would have to deploy that quickly, but I am guarding my heart and preparing for that possibility. The reality of Brendan coming home from work one day and saying, "I'm deploying, I have to report in 2 hours," is something that I don't think I will ever actually be prepared for... but understanding the possibility and accepting it is the only way I can cope with it if it actually happens. Deployments are something that came with the package of falling in love with Brendan, and we will make it through these deployments. There's this photo I've seen floating around Facebook from some of my friends that says : "I just love deployments!" Said no military spouse, ever. - I think that quote about sums it up. No military spouse enjoys deployments, but they endure them anyways.

Onto the real pink elephant... Death. I think that part of the reason Brendan and I never discuss the possibilities of deployments is because it's an easy transition into talking about the what-ifs that come with that conversation, the big one being "What if you die?" The fact is, that's a possibility. There is nothing I can say to ease my mind about that and nothing Brendan can say that would make that possibility any easier for me. The only thing that comforts me is that I'm not scared of where Brendan is going, I know he will spend eternity with Our Father whenever he is called, and that God will give me the grace I need to cope with that if he calls Brendan too soon.

    I lift up my eyes to the hills.
        From where does my help come?
    My help comes from the LORD,
        who made heaven and earth.
    He will not let your foot be moved;
        he who keeps you will not slumber.
    Behold, he who keeps Israel
        will neither slumber nor sleep.
    The LORD is your keeper;
        the LORD is your shade on your right hand.
    The sun shall not strike you by day,
        nor the moon by night.
    The LORD will keep you from all evil;
        he will keep your life.
    The LORD will keep
        your going out and your coming in
        from this time forth and forevermore.
Psalm 121 ESV

 The Dance

Sometimes it feels like Brendan and I dance around these subjects. There are moments when I know that both of us are thinking about these things but neither one of us wants to actually say the words out loud, and he will reach over and squeeze my hand or give me a kiss. I've come to the realization that that kiss or hand squeeze is much more comforting than any words that either one of us could come up with. He knows that he has my support no matter what comes to pass.

I know that our faith in God will pull us through any circumstances we are given even if we don't see the purpose at that time. There will come a time when Brendan and I will have to breach these subjects but it's not yet, and when that time comes the words will be jumbled and become unimportant in the grand scheme of things. The only thing I think I'll need to hear is "I love you and we will make it".

Amazing Grace

So, wedding and moving planning are chugging along here with less than 2 weeks to go for both. Life has been pretty busy and stressful. I'm in my last week of work and trying to iron out as many details for our transitions as I can. Brendan is in his last week of Airborne School which means that he is learning to jump out of planes and will jump out of a plane 5 times this week... what a great thing to do 2 weeks before you get married! He leaves at about 3:00am and returns between 6 and 9 pm. On an average day, we are able to spend around 1 hour together because of Brendan's sleep schedule... which means that during that time I am most likely harassing him about the wedding or our move.

Something that's more important that all of those little things we have going on in our lives is that last weekend Brendan and I  got baptized at our church! We were both christened as infants in our childhood churches, but feel that we are called to be baptized as believers in the Gospel, which we weren't capable of being when we were infants. At the church we go to during a Baptism Sunday, a friend will read your testimony of God's grace in your life to the congregation and then you are fully immersed in water. Water baptism illustrates Jesus' death, burial and resurrection as well as the death of  our old sinful lives and of being raised to walk in newness of life in Christ. The submerged body represents death and burial and the body being raised up out of the water provides a picture of resurrection and new life.

While baptism does not "save" you, it is a public proclamation of your faith in Jesus and admission of your need for God's grace in your life.

     What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
    For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
    Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace. Romans 6:1-14 ESV

 If God can forgive us, we then are called to forgive others

 I feel like it's important for me to be honest and say that doing life together again has had its challenges, and especially the last few weeks, we have needed to give each other grace. When two people come together, their own selfish wants sometimes get in the way and cause them to butt heads... add in the stress of what my Army friends and I call "reintegration" after periods of separation, wedding planning, and moving? Well you have yourself an equation for stress, and sometimes people's feelings get hurt.

There is a song that we sing in church called "Come Ye Sinners" and one of the lyrics says: "If you tarry until you're better you will never come at all." I've always liked that part of the song, it's encouraging to know that you cannot wait until you've "cleaned yourself up" to come to Christ and that no matter how battered and broken you are if you repent and believe, He will save you. Okay, its much more than encouraging. It's amazing.

I've always had a tough time forgiving people without holding onto some lingering grudge, but as I continue on my journey with the Lord, I realize how badly I need to begin forgiving and asking for forgiveness. God doesn't wait for us to make things right to give us grace, so if the Creator of the universe can forgive us without waiting for us to clean ourselves up, why do we constantly wait for apologies from the people we love? Christ has taught us that He is love and that through His love for us by His work on the cross, all our sins are forgiven... if that is the case for us with God, how can we not make it the case in our own lives with people that we love and forgive them even when they don't ask for it? How can we expect God to forgive us from turning away from Him, when we can't even forgive people for the minor things in life?

Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. James 1:19-20 ESV

The Best Intentions

This post is long overdue and I apologize, but I have been spending all of my free time with this guy!

Ranger School graduation was so much fun, and we were thankful to be able to share it with our families, and local friends who took time out of their busy lives to come to the ceremony. We were so thankful and overwhelmed. If you have never been to a Ranger School Graduation and find yourself in Columbus, GA on a Friday, check and see if one is going on because it's pretty interesting.

My Mother and Brendan's Parents

Members of our Community Group from Crosspointe

Our friends Dustin and Alyssa

Life has been so much brighter having Brendan back, but it has been crazy! The weekend after his graduation, we spent time with his parents who had driven in from Indiana, the next week was spent working (me) and catching up on being in the real world (Brendan).

Last weekend we took a drive up to Fayetteville, NC to check out houses since are preparing to moving there within about a month. I'm excited to move to a place that we will be staying for a long period of time, but am also nervous about leaving the life I've made here. I've especially been anxious about finding a good church to get involved with, but luckily our friends here have given us phone numbers of people that they know in our area. The pessimistic side of me is concerned that we will never find as many wonderful people as we have in Columbus, but I know that God does all things for the good of his people and already has plans for us once we move.

On our way back, we drove over to Savannah, GA where I got to spend some quality time with one of my best friends Moira. Moira and I have known each other for 6 years and her husband happens to be a Captain in the Army. Whenever I'm confused about anything military, I call her. I also call her to talk about how much we love Harry Potter and New York City. I was blessed that she was stationed at Fort Benning for the first 6 months that we were here, I'm pretty positive I would have driven myself crazy if she wasn't here. I'd never been to Savannah and was so excited to go and explore... Moira and I both read the book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil and it was so amazing to see all of the places the author wrote about!  I can't wait to go back, I love history and old cities so I am probably going to read every book I can get my hands on about Savannah in preparation for my next trip!

 

Enjoying a stroll on a VERY warm day

Preparations

It's now getting into crunch time as far as wedding planning goes, and it seems that my brain is constantly sending off little sparks of more things that I have to do. On top of preparing for our wedding, we are also preparing to move to our next duty station within the same week or so as the wedding. Needless to say it's time for us to get organized.

As we prepare to do all of these things, I have been feeling the need to constantly remind myself what the important things are. The wedding will happen either way, and we will move, but I find myself placing more value in preparing for these things than in preparing myself for our actual marriage.

This week we went over to our church and met with our pastor to talk about having a gospel centered marriage and what it looks like. Marriage in the way that God intended it to be is a mirror of the Gospel. As a reminder to ourselves, being that as humans we are forgetful, Brendan and I have "Ephesians 5" engraved on the inside of our wedding bands. This verse has been so helpful for us in our walk with the Lord because it spells out how God expects us to love. A few months ago, our church did a lecture series through the book of Ephesians and the sermon on this text really convicted Brendan and I and what our thoughts and expectations of marriage looked like in our own life.

 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.  For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior.  Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.
Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”  This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.  However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband. Ephesians 5:22-33 ESV

The center of this passage and of Biblical marriage in general is self-sacrifice. My friend Hunter describes it as dying to yourself so your partner can live. I understand that many people might not see this as romantic or something that can make someone happy, but marriage is about sanctification much more than happiness.

     And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying:
    “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
    “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
    “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
    “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
    “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.
    “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
    “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.
    “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
    “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. Matthew 5:2-12 ESV

When Jesus gave his Sermon on the Mount, he did not say "Blessed are those who pursue happiness above all else." He said "Blessed are those who mourn...who thirst for righteousness". So often in modern culture we see people walk away from marriage or other things in pursuit of happiness. In our own lives we put the most effort into the things that will give us the most happiness. Happiness, which is a thing that is good, has turned into an idol.. Happiness is fleeting. There will be days, even years, that are hard and may seem impossible, but if we pursue happiness instead of a relationship with God, it is idolatry.

The thought of letting go of all of my selfish wants to serve my husband scares me. I struggle with selfishness on a daily basis, I find myself valuing the things in my life based on what will make me happiest. Then I remember Christ. When faced with pain and suffering, he chose death on the cross to save the church, His bride, from her sins. He gave his life in order to save the souls of those who put their trust in Jesus Christ.

The Best Intentions

Almost everyone who has ever gotten married had the best intentions when they entered into marriage. They wanted to make their spouse the happiest person in the whole entire world! I have that intention too, but life tends to trip you up along the way. Things get hard, speed bumps begin to look like Mt. Everest. We are humans, train-wrecks, selfish and dissatisfied, and without the truth of the Gospel and the grace of God we would be hopeless.

Even the best of intentions don't always pan out. We mess up, and without the foundation of understanding why God created marriage, we're lost.