Ups and Downs

Deployments are filled with so many ups and downs for me.

Maybe I've just done this one too many times. Maybe it's that we have five very active and busy females under my command this time.  Maybe I'm just being lazy and selfish ... just sayin' ... maybe it's just that Richard has been gone for over four months and he's still in the USA.  I don't know.  If I were honest, I'd say it was a little of all of the above and maybe then a few other things on the side.  Regardless, deployments are filled with so many ups and downs for me.  This go around is no different, however I do feel like it is a little more intense.  I can get amazingly motivated and in a split second feel like I'm just going to die of loneliness.  Don't worry, I'm okay, but I am being honest and I am not so sure there is a lot of that that goes around.  

The first part of 1Peter3.12 tells us that "the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and His ears are attentive to their prayer."  What a comfort this is.  What hope!  What encouragement. When I think of this verse, I am reminded that life ain't always perfect.  It's not always easy and it's not always what we want or even what we think we need.  But if we know Christ, then we know that we are not forgotten and that things are exactly the way they are meant to be.  His eyes are not ever off of us.  And for me, what I read in this verse it that there will be times we cannot resist crying out and when that happens, we have the best ears to cry out to.  

Ups and downs.  I am so riding that roller coaster lately.  I wish I had a unit to be around and get frustrated with:).  I wish I had tons of friends to pop in and take my mind of things or even take my kids for an hour or so.  I wish I had family to come stay with me a month and just be here.  I wish my girls were younger so that we could load up and just "get out of dodge" so to speak for a while, rather than older ones who are tied down by activities.  And I think it is okay to wish these things.  Sometimes, as a friend wrote, it is good to have a little tantrum:).  But I definitely make it a practice to focus on the good, too.  There is always so much of it! 

So tonight as I struggle with focusing on the good, I start by simply thanking God for creating Richard.  I thank Him for giving me a life that helps me appreciate (miss) the very simple day to day things. I thank Him for the depth of relationship that I have with my husband because of so much separation.  Yes, you read that right ... despite what you may think, there is depth.   I thank God for the grace He gives me daily to encourage my husband in a job that God has blessed him with ... grace to see beyond the separation.  And I thank God for the mercy He shows me each day and pray that I can have the humility He requires of me to honor Him and be "strong" in a way that I wish I didn't have to be.

I don't have a lot of help.  But I do have a 13 year old who just cleaned up the entire kitchen without my asking, a 9 year old who ran the baths and gathered the p.j.'s for her little sisters, a 4 year old who out of nowhere told me that I looked awesome (I'm in the clothes I ran in about five hours ago), a 3 year old who got her p.j.'s on by herself ... because "I can do it by myself!" and a 7 year old who for the first time all day is not bothering one single person.  I know this moment is fleeting:), but I am thankful God allowed me to recognize it and I am thankful that it was here.  

Sola Gratia!