For the ones...

This is for the ones who take to the deserts risking their lives while I go for a boat ride and enjoy the waves.

For the ones who sit behind a desk guiding UAV's , who go suffer the mental turmoil of firing bombs one minute and having dinner with their families the next,

For the ones who work the night shift making sure every plane, ship, and tank is ready to go,

For the ones who bear the weight of the world's troubles on their shoulders and try to do something about it,

For the ones who miss birthdays and graduations,

For the families who are left behind,

The wives who are left in the dark and hold the family together in the soldier's absence,

This day I honor you. I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your work. I understand the courageous burden you bear. Your service and sacrifice is not taken for granted or unappreciated.

For my husband, Thank you for putting "service before self" at the office, on the line, and in our home. I love and miss you!

Preparing

I have grown to understand the word "preparation" in a whole new way over the past several months. I consider myself to be a rather organized and responsible person. I have made it a habit of carefully creating a meal plan on Sunday nights for the week and prepare a grocery list with a slew of coupons before heading out to the store. I spend way too long in the morning looking at the weather trying to plan outfits for the week and I am always working on homework assignments way before they are due so that I maximize my time preparing.

(This is what it looks like while I am "preparing" i.e. studying, reading, writing etc.)

But God is teaching me a whole new meaning to the word, and to be honest I'm getting kind of frustrated about it! I have learned to view this phase of my life as preparation for so many opportunities that will come in the future...

Time with the Lord so be ready if I am ever called to ministry

Time with my husband in case he is ever called to deploy

More and more studying to prepare for whatever job/career I could have in the future

Learning new recipes so when life gets crazy I'll have a few tricks up my sleeve

But today, I just don't see the reason for all this preparation. Will I really spend my whole life waiting for that impending event that I have been "preparing" for? If and when that actually comes, will all this time spent thinking and preparing for it really matter?

Ultimately, I know that I need to forget about whatever that next thing I am waiting for that will happen in this lifetime and focus on preparing my heart and mind for eternity in heaven. How I spend my money, my time, my gifts, my energy needs to not be focused on fulfilling some earthly goal but in pleasing the Lord.
.........
During a wonderfully long graduation ceremony last weekend I couldn't help but sit back and think about all that had happened to me during my time at Mary Washington. All the things that I learned, the people I met, and how much I grew in my faith. My focus while at school was so much about finishing. So many days it felt like the list of assignments was endless, leading so that day when I would receive a diploma and mean something to the world. But there I sat, in a completely different place than I imagined. I didn't have a job offer in the city waiting for me. I wasn't hungover from the graduation festivities. I didn't have multiple professors hugging me as I walked through the line.

But, what I did have was a husband who woke up before the sun to get the best seats in the house.

Sweet friends who have shown nothing but support and love as my life went it a different direction than theirs.

An acceptance letter to a grad school that has potential to connecting me in so many ways. And a God who was smiling down on me saying, "this is not the end, I am so not finished with you yet." 

The preparation, and studying that seemed to endless and meaningless at the time has a purpose and the purpose is never ending. Preparing academically, spiritually, and emotionally is not about building up to one final moment of achievement but in growing a little more each day to become more like Jesus.


So God, even though I am tired and weary of waiting for the "a ha" moment, show me that the moment is right now and today you are stretching me in your own timing to be more like you.

Verse 10

2 Peter 3: 9 "The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance."

Verse 09

Sorry this is going to be short this time.... I'm working on the application for University of Delaware! More details to come, thanks for your prayers and encouragement...here's to taking a chance!

John 15:5 "I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing." ESV